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THE HOUSE OF CARDS 



THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


A RECORD 


BY 

JOHN HEIGH /IaMMsI? C> 

Sometime Major U.S.V. 



Nefo gorfc 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 

1905 


All right* reserved 


• • 


LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Coptes deceived 

May 15 1905 

Couyngm entry 

fllcfaijs: iqof 

CLASS/ /) AXc. Not 

JJ <o q // 

COPY B. 


• * V • 



Copyright, 1905, 

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 


Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1905. 



Nortooob fires* 

J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co, 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 


To LINSEY ATTILA CARDS, Esquire 
OF THE HOUSE 


Reckon always upon the stupidity of persons and the 
intractability of things; that is philosophy. Recognize the 
exceptions; that is business. So runs your terse maxim , 
my dear Cards; and if the disguise of this name which I 
give you seems ridiculously thin; if the sei'viceable but 
ancient mask of sentimental bachelor , which I assume , fails 
to hide a face scarred with marks of many a literary indis- 
cretion; and if finally, it appears the limit of presumption 
for me to hint that your successful and illustrious career 
makes only the mightier menace to our civic existence, — it 
is all because I am emboldened by your own maxim to take 
that chance of exceptions and win a desperate game. I 
always love and often honour you; I despise, I fear, I de- 
test, the House which you have built. Lay the axe to its 
foundations, and you will be the greatest patriot in history. 


JOHN HEIGH. 


CONTENTS 


i 

PAGE 

The House Triumphant 1 

II 

Idyll of the Founding 97 

IH 

The Epic of the Founding 167 

IV 

The Comedy of the Founding 255 

y 

The Tragedy of the Founding 323 

VI 

The House Dubitant 351 


vii 



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I 


\ 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


V 









THE HOUSE OF CAEDS 


I 

The name is commonplace enough, and un- 
meaning besides ; the pun is obvious. I hate 
the obvious. But my cheerful young friend had 
put questions to me. 

“ What is in this old quarry here, Major 
Heigh ? ” 

“ Memories,” said I. “ We’ll dig some up. ...” 
But he parried. 

« What’s the castle yonder ? ” 

And then it was that I sneered out the poor, 
punning, hackneyed phrase. “That? That is 
the House of Cards ! Down on your knees, boy, 
and sing, My country , His of thee” 

“ Ah,” says my young friend, and again, 
“ Oho ! ” — not incisively ; but it is for me to 
say things now. I begin with the finances of 
the House, rounding my lips to the size of the 
figures, and chirping little audacities of com- 
ment on the ways and means, seasoning it all 
with that grim humour which you have doubt- 
less noted over my signature — J. H in the 

3 


4 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


Commonwealth. Then I pull up, abruptly, I sup- 
pose, and display a dignified reticence. I am no 
gossip, I. Cards is my friend; and I particu- 
larly detest this gabble about rich men from 
some Mrs. Quickly in trousers. Who knows, 
moreover, when gentlemen of the high finance 
will have a little Bastille of their own, and our 
pliant governor will issue snug lettres-de-cachet ? 
A promoter, did you say, Cards ? Not at all. 
He reorganizes railways and things ; one rail- 
way I know he has reorganized three times; 
and these rejuvenated concerns have been very 
grateful to him. He is rich beyond all decent 
guessing, educated, stately in port, my friend of 
fifty years ; and I regard him as the most dan- 
gerous man in America. 

« A politician, is he ? I didn’t know. ...” 

“ Nonsense ! He despises politics, — and that 
is why he is the most dangerous man in America.” 

Again it is “Ah” and “Oho” from my young 
friend, who is no better than an Englishman ; 
but I can see that he is duly impressed with my 
epigrammatic way of talk. He shall read my 
letters in the Commonwealth. Just now, how- 
ever, I am to tell him about Cards. Yes, Cards 
is “a plain man of business,” his own rating; 
and wears his great honours, as he has borne 
his faculties, very meekly indeed. Yet, if I 
were playing Shakespeare with him, I should 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


5 


certainly not call him Duncan; not Macbeth 
either ; Caesar, some would say : but I am by 
no means sure. He asks no crown of any politi- 
cal origin, whatever his actual power in finance 
and the great industrial world. He deplores, 
sincerely as I think, the rule of low politicians ; 
rails with me, now and then, at our futile de- 
mocracy ; and how he does hate to go on foot 
by the Wager Building, here in Philadelphia, 
and have that dissolute group of bosses and 
ward-heelers salute him by name ! Yet if one 
thing can stir his wrath more than politics, it 
is reform. Responsible in what he calls his 
“ fiduciary capacity ” as director of banks and 
trusts, he points out the sickening folly of men 
who invite reprisals from our lords of the bal- 
lot ; he sends his big cheque to Ganewood, Over- 
lord Ganewood, who holds all the little lords in 
leash ; and no doubt some of those fellows at 
the Wager Building are jingling his money in 
their pockets as he goes haughtily by. No, 
Cards will not meddle with politics or with 
reform ; and the politicians all extol him for 
his fidelity to that first commandment with 
promise for every American man of affairs : 
“ Thou shalt do no public service.” I am glad, 
however, that they made his son and namesake 
accept high diplomatic honours abroad ; that is 
safe employment, and full of dignity ; and young 


6 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


Linsey discharges the duties of his position with 
efficiency and grace. I could wish, indeed, that 
a like ambition to shine in foreign parts would 
possess another son, Horace, whom we call “ sport- 
ing Hod,” and whom some of us would willingly 
contemplate through the haze of one or more 
severing seas. — Oh, he apologized humbly for the 
cigar trick, — yes, yes: I have forgiven and for- 
got . . . forgiven long ago 

“ By Jove, though, Windsor Castle sings small 
to that, now ! ” 

“ Doesn’t it ? ” — I am proud of our suburbs. 
Confound it all, Cards built his house with 
honest money, not with the dirty stuff that went 
to the founding of... never mind. Yes, it is a 
fine place. And we look at its solid walls, and 
the turrets, and the long gardens and lawns 
before it, the woods behind, and, by their border, 
great brick stables with a clock-face we can 
almost read from here. The golf grounds lie this 
side of the House, taking in the stone mansion 
where my Uncle Charles once lived. How he 
would stare at those young men tossing down a 
“ highball ” as they dress in his old-fashioned 
room, at senile Putter discussing his strokes, at 
Niblack swearing over adverse luck ! — Did we 
never swear, you ask ? Well . . . yes. Yes. But 
it was mellow, racy, adventurous, our swearing ; 
the ten commandments were in force, and one 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


7 


took one’s eternal future in one’s hand. — Yet how 
fair it all looks to-day ! The rolling country, 
drained, hedged, bright with these red-coated or 
white-flannelled folk, and loud with cheerful 
oath or laugh ; and here at our feet a smooth 
road, echoing to riders who trot back from polo, 
and suddenly enlivened by a big four-in-hand, — 
no common sight nowadays. Observe the triple- 
plate English groom ! “ Observe the men and 

women, — particularly that young whip. That’s 
Elbert-Kelley ; pronounce JElbare. They did try 
Quellay,- with a 4 de,’ — Gascon founder, and 
eclipse under the Albert Kelley cloud and the 
mills ” 

But my comrade, civilly enough, cuts me 
short. Who was the girl, he hastens to inquire, in 
the fetching tan suit, who was sitting as far from 
Master Elbert-Kelley as space would permit, and 
who nodded so gaily, with such superfluous 
cordiality, one might put it, to me ? Ho, ho ! 
To think that I am standing here by the old 
quarry and telling a Waltham Eliot that all un- 
consciously he has been looking at a Kriemhild . . . 
this time, Kriemhild Cards! Oh, my whirligig 
of time ! Ho, ho ! 

“ Kriemhild ? Deuce of a name! And you 
laugh at us Yankees for our Samanthas and 
Patiences ! Yet I seem to remember . . 

« Yet you seem to remember. . .” 


8 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


« Ah, of course. My uncle’s wife ! ” 

“ Sagacious, intelligent boy ! Both Kriemhilds 
are extant ; this is one of them ; and you shall 
know both before another sunrise. — Now come 
home to dinner.” 

« Kriemhild Cards. Of course. But she must 
be just out ? ” 

« She is.” 

“ I thought the entire flock was out, far out, 
and up, too, — so high ! ” He raised his hand in 
the familiar gesture. 

“ The others are. Lin must be getting on to 
forty, the diplomatic Lin. And Horace, though 
some years younger, is already writ large in the 
records. Come ! He was at Harvard ! Never 
heard of Horace ? ” 

“ Oh ! Shuffle Cards ! Well, I should think 

so. Among the Dickey But I’m just a bit 

too late for any contemporary knowledge of 
Shuffle’s active career. I’ve heard of it, though.” 
— Waltham Eliot smiled, and I grinned. 

“ Major, is she engaged ? ” 

« Who ? ” 

“ Now, Major ! The lass in tan, to be sure.” 

“No. She’s waiting for a duke, or a prince 
of the blood, I suppose. Now come along to 
dinner.” 

“ The old man is a terror, — Cards Senior ? ” 

“ Gentle as a dove, — at home. A child can 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


9 


play with him. But ware a bout with him at 
the office, my lad. Better hand over your assets 
at the start. He’s generous. But if you scent of 
a newspaper, and he once thinks ‘ reporter,’ why, 
pray that your flight be in the winter so that you 
may dive into the first snowbank ! — But he’ll like 
you.” — I looked a moment at the smooth, strong 
face, the clear eye, the bigness of the frame, and 
the sureness of the pose, the whole effect of sanity, 
alertness, honesty, force, health. — « He’ll like you. 
Well, who wouldn’t?” 

“ Thank you ! ” 

“ No. Don’t thank me. Behave yourself when 
I present you this evening to my lord and my 
lady, and to my young lady. Do you hear, sir ? — 
And now,” — I stamped my foot as we Heighs 
do when we mean business, — “ now come home 
to dinner, or you’ll get none.” We are a rough, 
hardy, plain-speaking breed. 

It was only the preceding day that I stood on 
my piazza, with the westering sun in front of 
me, and used strong language to a smooth- 
tongued politician with a G.A.R. badge on his 
coat and his mouth full of tobacco and flattery. 
I didn’t ask him in ; no apothecary’s civet or 
other remedy could have sweetened the room for 
a month. I didn’t even look at the fellow, as 
he stood there, but blinked painfully into the 


10 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


sunset, — and spoke my mind. He had been a 
bounty- jumper in the old days of the war ; and 
I remember refusing to let him enlist in my com- 
pany. Now he is great-man’s great-man to our 
county boss ; and he is very strong on G.A.R. 
posts and pensions. He had me expelled from 
the local post — once named after me — because 
I broke up a dirty political “ deal ” ; and he as- 
sured my old soldiers that I “ wouldn’t mind.” 
One of them, on whose little farm I held a mort- 
gage with five years’ interest unpaid, relying on 
this assurance, told me that the vote of expul- 
sion was a mere formality that should make no 
difference at all in my blend of mercy and justice. 
And here now is the source of all the trouble ; 
he smiles obsequiously, hat in hand, remarking 
in his easy, rural-politics style that there need be no 
hard feelings, and asks me for my indispensable 
signature on a certificate to get a pension, a fat 
pension, for the biggest coward in my command. 
The fellow had contracted heart-disease in run- 
ning away from battle. This time, however, our 
satrap finds my language too impetuous even for 
his tried suavity of intercourse, and goes away 
sorrowful ; while I turn wrathfully around and 
make straight for my doorway, only to see the 
imperturbable Bridget, with a card in her hand, 
waiting my leisure, and a brisk young fellow 
standing near the piazza step, his head averted to 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


11 


conceal something very like laughter ; he motions 
the driver of a crazy station-wagon to bide for 
further orders. I had not noted any wagon, any 
servant, any visitor, during my harangue ; and 
there is no doubt that I am growing old. I look 
at the card ; I look at the young man ; and I 
nearly topple over into my rhododendrons. 
Bridget interprets my facial transformations. 
“ Bring up the gintleman’s coat and umbrella, 
Danny,” she says ; “and yez can take back the 
man with* the copper button. We’ll trade.” — 
Bridget now and then abuses her privilege as an 
old bachelor’s old servant. 

But we sit down, this athletic, bronzed young 
fellow and I, in the library, — the plain, com- 
fortable, high-studded room where my father, one 
summer night long ago, read to my mother about 
Colonel Newcome, while I stood listening on the 
piazza. . . . 

“ You look like him,” I say, alluding to my 
old friend and companion-in-arms whose name 
this youngster bears. “You look like him, — 
and you don’t. The resemblance knocks one 
down with surprise ; you saw me reel like an 
actor, just now, eh? But the difference picks 
one up again, — though slowly, slowly. I’m not 
sure I am picked up quite yet. You’re bigger, 
stockier ; your face is ampler, or else it’s the 
new smooth-shave versus old moustache. You 


12 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


youngsters are plausible and cheeky where we 
were bearded, mysterious, and romantic, — eh ? 
You’re too big, too jocular and frivolous, for girls 
of my day, with romance in their dear little 
hearts. Confound you cool, matter-of-fact, rising 
generation, anyhow, — eh ? ” 

“ Oh, come, Major Heigh !” 

“ Yes. But after all, it is the same face as it 
is the same name. I’ll chance the heart, too. 
Don’t mind my talk. My name is Bear. I growl 
and frighten people; but I am a good bear all 
the same. Welcome to the old den, and make 

it your own, my dear boy Waltham Eliot ! 

Let me see. The brother was. . . Winthrop, — a 
tot of a lad, — ‘ Winny.’ Ah, I remember. I 
remember.” 

“My father, Major Heigh. And I am the 
Benjamin of his otfspring. They gave me my 
uncle’s name. I have been taught to think it a 
responsibility.” 

“ It’s close upon fifty years ago, young fellow. 
He used to sit where you sit now, and talk to 
my mother with that foreign accent and that 
fine courtesy, — boy that he was. How my 
mother liked him ! How she used to tell me 
that was the friend for me, — not the farmer 
boys, not even Cards. She never liked Cards 
very much. She . . . Waltham Eliot the second, 
I like you / ” 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


13 


This was my abrupt way ; but the young 
fellow looked at me with that honest sympathy 
in his face which I could remember so well in 
the uncle. I was lapsing down huge glissades 
of sentiment. It wouldn’t do at all. 

“Eliot,” I said very gruffly, “I remarked that 
I liked you. What of that, — eh? I can do 
young men no good. I’m a crusty fellow of the 
sort they used to call Mugwump. I abuse our 
constituted rulers. I write stinging letters 
(unpaid), to the Commonwealth, and I contemplate 
life as a Hole. I once belonged to our volunteer 
forces in the civil war ; but that is over long 
since, and I have just joined another command. 
Maybe you don’t know it, — you’re not quite 
old enough ; it’s Shakespeare’s Sixty-sixth Son- 
neteers. ... No, you are not eligible until you’re 
past forty. It’s the Tired Regiment. Look up 
that sonnet some day, my lad. We are all tired, 
honestly tired ; tired of the Patriots-for-what’s- 
in-it ; tired of this sensual American life grinning 
and winking through a mask of conventional 
piety and morals and law ; tired of a tainted 
government, an exploded democracy ; tired . . . 
Oh, you are tired, eh ? Well, most of that is from 
one of my letters. I bore you, eh ? You want 
to take the next train ? ” 

“ Not at all, Major, not at all. Only 
you . . 


14 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


— “Are a whining, dyspeptic, cross-grained 
misanthropic old bachelor, — a sorehead. — Well, 
so I am frequently told. But see, — did you ever 
know a man who really loved his country and 
did not heartily hate many of his countrymen ? ” 

“ I’m not past forty.” 

“ Quite right, too, dear boy ! Put it off as 
long as you can. Stick to your ideals and your 
business and your poetry — and, of course, your 
sweetheart.” 

“ Ah, Major, — why are you a bachelor ? ” 

“ So kind women ask me now and then. 
Youngster, I fear I can do you no good. I re- 
peat it. I am of an old and pretty sound stock, 
and incidentally I own some stocks also pretty 
old and pretty sound ; therefore people tolerate 
me. But I am a marked man. I smoke foul 

old pipes No, keep your eyes on me ; I like 

it. But you’re not in a good light ; probably it’s 
the glasses ; and then Squire Ditchwater, out 
there, got on my nerves. — I’ll telephone now for 
your trunk. — Letters, eh ? Oh, — after a while, 
after a while. It’s your face, my thane of Boston, 
that I’m reading now. And you are my guest 
for a long pull ; remember that. What are your 
plans ? ” 

“ Well, sir, my father died just before the boom 
came along, and he thought he was nearly 
ruined.” 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


15 


“ Too honest, eh ? ” 

“ I don’t like to think so. But a lot of stocks 
he had marked ‘ trash ’ — copper, you know, and 
all that, — flew up to par while the executor 
was gaping at them. It was all sold and rein- 
vested ; mother and the girls are happy in Boston. 
But Boston is no place for a young lawyer.” — 
The boy reminded me of his uncle, fifty years 
ago, talking about his travels and Harvard Col- 
lege and Mr. Emerson. — “ Between you and me, 
Major Heigh, I think people are more than half 
right when they say that Boston is side-tracked.” 
He spoke in a soft, reverential voice, but firmly, 
like a devoted churchman who has at last con- 
cluded to give up the Athanasian creed. “ It’s a 
great place still ; no better city to live in and to 
be born in ; I’m loyal enough. But for an active 
business career, for the lawyer, — no. My friends 
made for New York ; but that idea is not so ob- 
vious as it looks. Corporation law is my special 
line. Corporations are responsible for our great- 
ness as well as for our corruption ; and remedies 
must come from corporation law. Well, sir, 
where is the heart of corporations if not here in 
Pennsylvania ? ” 

“ You know your Boston, judge. Well, do you 
know your Philadelphia ? Are you minded to 
be honest like your forebears, and do you want to 
go to Heaven when you die, and all that sort of 


16 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


thing, — and do you take stop-over privileges in 
Philadelphia ? ” 

“An honest man can always find honest 
business.” 

I gave him my “ Ho, ho ! ” in largest capitals. 

“ Well,” he conceded, for my “Ho, ho ! ” in that 
manner is nearly always fatal to the interlocutor, 
“ Oh, well, politics apart, I’m for law and hard 
work ; I only ask a fair field.” 

“ Ask it,” I said. I am the very deuce in ar- 
gument. “ Ask it. Do you expect a fair field 
here, if any money is to be made ? Business is 
rotten ; and law is a little more rotten than busi- 
ness ; and both of them have telephone connec- 
tion, — and not long-distance, either, my son, — 
with politics. Don’t < politics apart ’ me ! Poli- 
tics aren’t apart. They’re served with every 
dish we eat. Why, when I was writing my 
articles for the Commonwealth about our local 
bosses, they were going to condemn one of my 
fields yonder and put up the county pest-house 
on it. But Cards and Malstrem stepped in then 
. . . Hang it, Cards is a good friend. — But, — 
politics apart ! Sho ! ! ” 

“Well, Major Heigh, I’ll put up a stiff fight; 
why shouldn’t I ? I’m five-and-twenty. I have 
a thousand or two a year — and some law. 
Plenty of clothes, cheek, and appetite. There 
you have me, Major.” 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


17 


I looked at him. “ I have you, eh ? Well, I’ll 
hold you. Come see your room, — after I’ve sent 
for that trunk.” 

So it came to pass that in the late September 
afternoon I stood with another Waltham Eliot 
on our hill by the old quarry, and watched the 
light flooding rich and warm over that great 
House of Cards. And the same night we made 
our call. 


II 


“Just say a friend, — a young friend. Major 
Heigh and a young friend, — eh ? ” 

Cards’s man, who knows my ways, smiled 
respectfully ; and I, who did not know quite 
enough of my young friend’s ways as yet, glanced 
at him, ready to hearten him if there were need. 
Most men clear the throat, and make little 
gestures indicating great ease of manner, before 
they go into the presence; but Waltham Eliot 
was evidently afraid neither of Cards nor of any- 
body else. He looked about him, and expressed 
some measure of approbation in regard to the 
drawing-room, — to me a rather frigid region, — 
as the smooth-gliding John reappeared and bade 
us follow him to the library. “ All right, John,” 
I said ; “ I know. That will do.” 

I like stage effects. Just beyond the broad 
doorway the lights burned brightest, falling 
cannily upon our entrance. Cards, that jet- 
black hair and heavy moustache now gone 
almost white, but with the keen dark eye of his 
youth, the square set of jaw and mouth, the 
18 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


19 


sense of something deliberately indomitable 
exhaling from his poise and manner, was in 
such ease as a man of his make could ever 
assume ; he smoked placidly, looking through 
the great bay-window at a vague world of night, 
with a coffee-cup on the little table at his side and 
two newspapers slipped down to his feet. For 
all his repose, he was activity in statue ; cut like 
a qameo, one would better say, against that back- 
ground of dull, rich colour, — the stretch of heavy 
rugs, the books, and a fine picture here and there 
in seeming shadow. His wife, white, too, in her 
splendid wealth of hair, but with her superb 
complexion unimpaired by time, her violet eyes 
that looked as if they made this concession of 
colour to her beauty, but not to her character, 
her figure still suggestive of the strength and 
grace of youth, sat by a shaded drop-light on the 
library table and read Lord Ormont and his 
Aminta. Kriemhild the younger, who, if she 
had come into Fenimore Cooper’s pages, would 
have been “the other female, occupied with a 
piece of needlework,” was occupied with nothing 
but the fox-terrier at her feet, alert for a bark at 
the visitors and very prettily restrained by his 
mistress’s uplifted finger. She looked couthie, as 
the Scotch say, and was not without her own 
alertness to examine the “ young friend ” at better 
advantage than from the top of a coach. She 


20 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


was blindingly handsome, — in fact, the best- 
looking girl I ever saw, except one ; and she had 
charm: some day I will filch Eliot’s diary, if I 
can, and give you all the adjectives. Mine are 
no good ; you see, I have always known her 
mother. 

The terrier barked. Cards blinked, turning 
his gaze from the night-scene of the lawn. 
“Come in, John,” he said, with the capitalist 
drawl in his voice. Mrs. Cards laid aside her 
book ; and she said, “ Come in, John,” too, — in 
her own old-family accent. Remark that it is 
something to have two persons like them say 
“ John ” at all ; it is better than my own better’s 
sometime Sir John with all Europe. And, best 
of the bunch, “Good work, Uncle John,” came 
from the young woman. To be sure, none of 
the home group looked at me. I pushed my 
companion gently to the fore, as host and hostess 
rose to greet us ; there he stood, the light full on 
his face and his figure. — You know how dress 
brings out the gentleman, and somehow betrays 
the cad ? — My friends saw a gentleman ; and 
they saw something more. Ruddy and keen and 
full of life as he was, they, nevertheless, saw a 
ghost. “ Ho, ho ! ” I boomed out ; and the 
daughter, never surprised at any eccentricity of 
mine, was clearly non-plussed at the behaviour 
of her parents. 


THE HOUSE TKIUMPHANT 


21 


“ Ha, Linsey,” I said, stepping forward ; “ Oho, 
Kriemhild, — no need to name names, eh ? 
Well, for form — I present Mr. Waltham Eliot, 
late of Boston. He’s come to settle in Philadel- 
phia, live on law, and be honest Let us make 

his visit . . . pleasant.” 

It was not too delicate a trick for me to play 
this banker and his wife. The amazing likeness 
of young Eliot’s face meant for each of them the 
quintessence of deepest problems, the sentence of 
recapitulation which in some lives covers a whole 
library of action and comment. Cards was the 
more visibly affected. He mastered his emotion 
fast enough; but it was transmuted into a strange 
tenderness of look, an underplay of genuine senti- 
ment that rang again in the formal words of his 
welcome. Nobody, I think, had ever seen Cards 
hold a man’s hand the second or two overtime 
that we noted now, — his daughter with sheer 
amazement. She was not instructed in this 
chapter of the family chronicles 

I had slipped over to her as her father grasped 
the young man’s hand, and I gave her my cus- 
tomary gentle pinch of the ear, — a habit, I be- 
lieve, peculiar to myself and the first Napoleon. 
The adorable girl put her arm in mine and 
leaned against my shoulder ; I had on my large 
steel-rimmed spectacles ; my face, all “ chopped 
with tanned antiquity,” wreathed itself into a 


22 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


bless-you-my-children smile ; and we were a 
noticeable group. 

“ What’s got into Daddy, Uncle John? Look!” 

“ Shh,” said I, impressively. “ Don’t spoil 
scenes.” 

“Mr. Eliot,” Cards was saying, “the Span- 
iards, I believe, are wont to offer their houses 
and all they own to a welcome guest. I am 
not very keen about visitors, and nobody accuses 
me of exaggerated courtesy ; but I mean it when 
I tell you that you are absolutely at home in my 
house.” 

“ Show him, then,” I remarked drily, as I led 
the girl a pace or two forward, “ the best thing 
you’ve got in the house, by my way of think- 
ing.” And I made my little jest about an en- 
gagement of long standing between us ; and the 
little jest was duly recognized ; then the presen- 
tation was made, and for ten minutes there pre- 
vailed the inevitable adjustments of times, persons, 
events. Cards remembered the deceased Win- 
throp so thoroughly. “ How he cried when they 
told him the war would be over before he could 
enlist ! I used to read his first Latin to him, in 
college days. Why have I heard nothing, . . . but 
I see little of my old Boston friends now. I 
went up to commencement the other year ; and 
I hardly knew my classmates. I recollect that 
old Chuckle, as we called him, was excited over 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


23 


the prohibition of whisky-punch in the rooms ! 
It was uncanny. Every corner — our room was 
in Holworthy — reminded me of your uncle . . . 
and here this old keg droned on about his punch ! 
I went off to Boston and talked railroads all the 
afternoon, — to get sentiment out of my head.” 

“ Your sentiment took the approved Harvard 
form, sir, in that splendid . . .” 

“Oh, that. Yes, I named it after your uncle. 
My dear Mr. Eliot, it was no exaggeration when 
I told them that your uncle took me to Harvard, 
and Harvard gave me all I needed and could 
never have found elsewhere.” 

“ Daddy, I’ve known you, lo these many years ; 
and I’ve never had before such materials for the 
biography of L. A. Cards ” 

“Nonsense, my dear. But I am chattering 
vilely. It’s your face, Mr. Eliot, that makes me 
so sentimental. They’ve told you how much 
you look like him ? ” 

“ It seems to strike you and Major Heigh 
particularly, — though I’ve heard of it before. 
As I said to the Major, it means a heavy respon- 
sibility ” He waited a fraction of a pause, 

as if for permission, and changed the subject 
with some remarks on common friends addressed 
to the junior Kriemhild. Evidently the young 
fellow, in his kind heart, thought of the odd 
relation which he bore to the mother ; thought 


24 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


of her sensations at all this revival of the past. 

We were grateful to him In fact, Cards 

started visibly, as if he had just come to the 
idea. Friendship, you see, outlasts the most 
resolute and desperate loves ; and Cards had 
been taken by surprise at the sight of this repro- 
duction of one who had been his only friend. 
Somehow we sundered into two groups. Cards 
and I smoked ; and Mrs. Cards, whose eyes still 
had that dreamy look which could have been 
noted in mine, save for the large, steel-rimmed 
spectacles, came close to us on pretence of show- 
ing me something in her book “ Can any 

human being parse that sentence ? ” she inquired. 
I didn’t answer. She didn’t want any answer. 
Nor does any sentence written by Mr. George 
Meredith need parsing. Instinctively we three 
fell to talking of oldest times, — when we were 
girl and boys here ; and we looked indulgently 
over at the young people chatting so easily and 
frankly. A benediction was in the air ; it was 
one of those rare moments when life, for a whim, 
turns from tiger to kitten and rolls about for us, 
and purrs, and lets us feel how harmless are its 
claws. Here we were again! There was our 
good Waltham Eliot of old — by deputy. Only 
where was Clayton ? Where was his deputy ? 
They order these things better at the chateau in 
the French novel. If only the domestique — Jean, 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


25 


thou son of County Kerry, where art thou, 
mon brave? — if only Jean- John would announce 
one more visitor, and if that pale, melancholy 
man with a southern accent could enter . . . 
Nonsense ! Clayton the younger is now at least 
seven-and- thirty ; he wears a chin-beard in the 
occidental fashion, and lives in Kansas City, and 
has a large family, and is an official in what 
they call the Beef Trust. Cards got him the 
job. Cards can do anything for anybody. He 
can be a most useful friend ; and so I told young 
Waltham Eliot, as we paced home in the moon- 
light. 

He was dreamily terse and laconic ; my seeds 
of judicious discussion, my Horatian maxims, 
fell upon the rocks. I thought of my Virgil then, 
and my Dr. Johnson, and remembered who it is 
that is to be found amid the rocks : who but 
Love ? This, indeed, is your modern pace ; four 
hours or so, no more, and a stalwart fellow is 
gone beyond hope of rescue ! 

We came silently home, and the young man 
went to bed ; and I sat down for my letter to 
the Commonwealth. Over my head in the guest- 
chamber, as we used to call it, was the sound 
of footsteps, and then quiet ; I knew. He was 
smoking a cigarette by the window and baring 
his heart to the moon. Truly, now, in my youth, 
I too, John Polonius Heigh . . . but not so swiftly, 


26 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


not in this diurnal consummation ! — I can’t 
write ; no acid will trickle from my pen ; and I 
heartily curse the Commonwealth. ’Tis a dys- 
peptic sheet ; and love, not sarcasm, even in my 
choice brand of it, makes the world go around. 
Besides, they sent back my last communication. 
A little sherry will do me good. Yes, I will 
take a little sherry. I move slowly to the side- 
board in my old dining room, and turn on the 
light. . . . 

When at last I rouse myself to go to bed, I 
find that I am sitting by the table, with a sort 
of imbecile sympathy in my face, and staring at 
one of those fascinating pictures of a young man 
and a young woman, palpably sprung from the 
highest possible families, with every accessory 
of wealth and beauty, and in the most correct 
of evening attire, who smile at each other over 
a piano. Enchanter ! Noble and altruistic sheet, 
how much better than the Commonwealth's are 
thy merits and thy circulation ! How many a 
kitchen, how many a mechanic’s parlour dost 
thou cheer, not only with those resplendent pic- 
tures, but with thy advice about gloves at a re- 
ception or the nice conduct of an afternoon tea 
when one entertains a Roumanian nobleman ! 
Tired souls, dulled by toil over type-writer, sew- 
ing-machine, ledger, thou refreshest with certitude 
of correctness when they shall pay that private 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


27 


visit to the White House, or perchance be com- 
manded to dinner at Windsor Castle. Thou 
layest bare the heart of the flunkey, and the 
butler has no secrets from thee. Yes, Bridget 
has left her copy of The Home Comforter when 
she cleared up the room after our modest meal. 
And my eyes are glued this half-hour gone to 
yonder hypnotic picture. Smile on, young peo- 
ple, smile unintelligently on! John Heigh gives 
you his blessing, and remembers the gist of it all 
as set forth long ago : — 

Ein Mann, ein Weib ; ein Weib, ein Mann : 

Tristan, Isolt ; Isolt, Tristan ! 


Ho, ho ! — Ah ! — Ah me ! 


Ill 


That formula of the old German is right, and 
allows for leap-year withal ; but the modern 
method by which youth works it out is by no 
means to my taste. I wanted to watch this 
young love of my two pets blossom slowly, shily, 
tenderly, to full flower; it should be my own 
vicarious wooing, my autumnal rose. How I 
should bless them, I thought, bidding them not 
to fear their awful felicity, safe in the harbour 
of a decorous betrothal after an Odyssey of hopes 
and doubts and many tremblings of their lot in 
the balances of fate ! And, oh, the disillusion, 
the brutal frankness of courtship that flaunted its 
unwavering assurance of success in steady accel- 
eration for the month that followed ! These 
young people of to-day ! This modern love ! 
Cock-sure stripling, swinging lightly from his 
horse, or ruddy with a bout of tennis ; athletic, 
muscular girl, with her stride and laugh and 
frank cry to Billy or Dick or ... or Waltham, 
without a blush at the blunt, familiar name ! He 
can tie the very laces of her tennis-shoe and never 
tremble once ; she can tip his flannel hat awry, 
28 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


29 


meanwhile, with careless touch of a racket 

Gods of my amorous youth ! 

Thank you, indeed, Cards ; I am delighted at 
your proposal that we should drive together to 
the stock-farm this late October afternoon, and 
see your sleek cattle and your brawny draught- 
horses and your light victors of the speedway. 
I know a good horse, Banker, and had that lore 
long before you dreamed of it ; but my main 
affair is to get this congenital disease of romance 
once and for all out of my system, to banish afar 
memories of the young man of my day, who was 
wont to go pale and red by turns at sight of 
Her, to quote Byronic verses in a quivering, soul- 
ful voice, to look at her furtively and sigh, — yes, 
my lords, yes, and even to make that little lyric 
of his own and send it unsigned to flutter a duet 
with her heart as she reads, holding it in unsteady 
hands there in her virginal, white-curtained room 
or by the roses at twilight in the long garden 
walk. — Come out of the garden, Maud ! Ro- 
mance is dead 

Ay, touch up your horses, Cards ; let us hurry 
to the stock-farm. Breeding is the word. Amer- 
ica is a stock-farm ; our own President says it. — 
And Cards wonders at my mood ; wonders that 
I jerk out my crude paradoxes ; wonders that I 
say a bad word three several times, I, who hold 
it vulgar and ridiculous to swear. True, Cards 


30 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


himself says something between his teeth as a big 
red devil of an automobile — hybrid word for a 
hybrid thing begotten and beloved of a hybrid 
brummagem breed of sports — with a measly 
little pavid parvenu of an owner, and his fire- 
man ( chauffeur indeed ! I say “ fireman,” and be 
burned to him !), snorts up and sets our horses to 
a dance. You’ve heard, you say, that story about 
me and Master Elbert-Kelley and my pistol ? 
Oh, it’s exaggerated, — exaggerated. But I did 
scare him, and that’s a fact. He is very profuse, 
is Quellay now, with greetings and fine-days and 
stand-still-as-long-as-you-likes. Cards nods a con- 
temptuous recognition, and I grin broadly ; and 
we dash by. My satiric vein is set running now ; 
I feel better after a glimpse at that pasty face ; 
and I tell Cards why poetry is dead. 

“ And does your girl have cocktails and cigar- 
ettes in her room for visitors ? Oh, well, I know 
she doesn’t. I speak generically. But you are 
behind the times, Linsey, — behind the times.” 
Cards laughs. Then he grows serious. 

“John,” he confides, while the horses trot 
steadily up a long, gradual slope of the turnpike, 
“ that young friend of ours has been here a 
matter of six weeks; and I like him more and 
more.” 

“ Oh, he’ll do. He’ll do. Our automobile hero, 
there, Elbert-Kelley, of Kelley, cadet,” — I stop a 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


31 


moment reverently and touch my hat, while 
Cards indulges in a laugh, — “ says so himself. 
Final authority. Ever see him at golf, Cards ? 
Note him next time, and see how cad and caddy 
match, except in clothes, — red-headed aliens both, 
and be hanged to him as less of a gentleman 
than his comrade. Well, he has applied his 
highest test of gentility, and is positive that Eliot 
never wears detachable wristbands — ‘what they 
call cuffs, don’t-you-know V You remember that 
old Albert Kelley never wore detachable wrist- 
bands, Cards ? Quite so. Yes, Eliot will do. 
But what will he do with law ? That’s my 
problem.” 

“ Why ? ” 

“ He is so terribly at ease in Zion. Why, 
Linsey, I never see him plunging into the books 
with a wet towel round his head. He disap- 
points me. I wanted to read in the papers his 
great constitutional argument ; to go and listen 
to him pleading against old George H. — eh ? — 
and raising the devil as Judge Caraway used to 
do in our time. But he’s always dictating to his 
stenographer when I drop in at his office, or talk- 
ing accounts with some peddling merchant, ... it 
sounds more like business than law.” 

“ Ho,” said Cards, “ that is where he shows his 
sense. Law is all business now, John. He’ll do. 
I got Peedle to give him an insurance case.” 


32 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


« You think the root of the matter is in him ? 
Well. You know.” 

« He’ll go far. Brilliant — and steady, like 
these horses of mine. I need him in my work. 
Only he’s got this abnormal young-man idea 
about fighting the politicians. If he gets 
marked as a crank and reform lawyer, his day’s 
done. John, I can’t put the thing to him 
straight ; I don’t want to seem so anxious, 
either. You do it. Tell him to stick to straight 
business law and let politics alone.” 

“ Can he?” 

“Reasonably, — yes. And you are reasonable 
at heart, John — he’ll hear you. This is our 
Waltham Eliot’s nephew, — another Waltham. 
It makes me shudder, sometimes, to see the like- 
ness, — ways, speech, — you know. See, John, 
say this, — say it’s what you heard me give as 
my philosophy of the whole thing, as it really is. 
Corporations are the only means of handling 
these immense business concerns nowadays, and 
they are creatures of state or city. State and 
city are run by the politicians. They make it 
their business. I’ve watched all this reform ; 
once or twice I’ve helped ; but it came to noth- 
ing. Tell Eliot that a man of his ability and 
character can make anything in this world, — 
money, fame, reputation, — but he can’t make our 
political life better by assailing the politicians. 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


33 


It can’t be done. Indirectly, inside the corpora- 
tion fence, he can do something ; outside, he’ll 
only unmake himself. For God’s sake, Heigh, 
don’t let the boy ruin himself by this reform. 
John, I ... I love that boy.” 

The words look tame ; but if you had seen 
Cards when he said them, this cold, hard arbiter 
of finance, this inscrutable man of affairs ! — Per- 
haps he thought of the display. “ Tell him,” he 
said more coolly, “tell him to hold his tongue and 
work, until he knows all his facts.” 

“ How is he going to know them ? ” 

“ Ah ! ” — Cards pondered awhile. « If I 
could just souse him into it head over heels, — 
make him see the whole show at close range ! — 
I have it ! ” The banker nodded, fixed his idea ; 
then looked up, changing the subject. “Let’s 
enjoy this gorgeous afternoon,” he said. “Now, 
speaking of poetry,” — he gazed suggestively 
into the landscape, — “ ay, speaking of poetry,” 
he repeated with sudden interest, “ look ahead 
of you.” 

We were bowling along the old County Line ; 
and the fairest of valleys lay stretched far below 
us, seen through a vista of the forest trees nearly 
arching over our heads. Chestnut and maple 
were bare ; but brown leaves clung to the oaks, 
and the sun slanting through them made a colour 
richer than any green of spring. Autumn talks 


34 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


in Ben Ezra’s phrase even to the old, and tells 
them the best is yet to be, — that is, if one grows 
old with a grace. But I did not think of grow- 
ing old. Sharp wine of the air rushed into my 
lungs and said youth ; and youth was incorpo- 
rate a few yards before us in the attractive 
shapes of Eliot and Kriemhild Cards, stepping 
along in the most exact rhythm, shoulder to 
shoulder, with the intimacy of short phrases, 
silences, an occasional glance and nod. — Well, 
well, this was at last the right way of man with 
maid as we knew it in my youth, and as all 
youth has known it since the solitary was set . . . 
no, not that : say since Eden bowers. That was 
the style of 1855. Bless you, after all, my chil- 
dren ! I should certainly speak to Eliot as Cards 
had hinted. And I should revise my opinions of 
modern love. What a carping, sour old beggar 
I am ! . . . 

— “ Why do you look at me like that, Uncle 
John?” The surprise was over ; we had pulled 
up beside them ; Cards was chatting with Wal- 
tham, and I had been steadily gazing at young 
Kriemhild. 

“ Because I owe your sex and your generation 
an apology, my dear ! ” — All the rest I had to 
say was in a further look as I held the hand she 
gave me. She understood me ; she does not 
mind my big, steel-rimmed spectacles ; she was 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


35 


willing, I think, for me and for nobody else, to 
see the new light in her eyes 

“Yes, sir,” Eliot was saying, “we won the 
case. Clear, clean work all through. Courtesy 
and fair dealing from everybody. What a fine 
judge Duquesne is ! They tell me the city judges 
are a good set, too, — mainly.” 

“ I congratulate you,” said Cards. “ Look 
here, Eliot. I want you to see the other side, 
know the worst, and make up your mind — in 
time ; you must take time, — how bad the worst 
is. I have the scheme. Come to my golf din- 
ner on Friday.” 

“ Oh, — Daddy ! ” 

“But yes, my dear. Yes, Eliot; and John, 
you bring him. Every year or so I give a dinner 
— the golf is humorous — to all the republi- 
cans and sinners of these parts. Politicians, — 
the big ones, that is, — promoters, judges, rail- 
road men, whatsoever maketh and loveth a dol- 
lar in the grand style. And I throw in a few 
clergymen, literary men, and John Heighs for a 
makeweight. But it’s the politicians and pro- 
moters that I wish you to meet. You’ll need 
stout gloves when you shake hands with some 
of them ; but what of that ? My dutiful 
daughter, there, is making a face. Well, she 
and Mrs. Cards always flee to the city or to 
Lakewood for that brief season. This is not 


36 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


their affair, — and they really know nothing 
about it. Only men, of course. The Major 
will prime you for the occasion, — eh, John? 
That will be Friday night. On the Tuesday 
after, — election night, isn’t it ? However, so 
much the better, for we shall all be in good 
humour — yes, on Tuesday night, Eliot, I should 
like to see you at the house. I have a proposi- 
tion to make, — business matters of some inter- 
est to you. — Well, these horses won’t stand 
longer. — Friday night, — and then Tuesday ! 
Kriemhild, no slanders on my guests, now. 
Good-bye, — good-bye ! ” 

We whirled off, a saucy little veto from made- 
moiselle bringing that rare laugh to the face of 
the financier. I was pleased. — “ A proposition, 
eh? Well,” and I poked the man of money in 
his confounded old ribs, chuckling out my words 
like a stage uncle from India. “Well, Linsey, 
and it’s dollars to doughnuts the boy has a coun- 
ter proposition for you ! ” 

f “ Let him make it,” said Cards ; “ let him 
make it. Kriemhild is a good girl. . . . Things 
have happened since ’fifty-five, John? Eh? 
Things have happened.” 

He had to watch his horses down the long 
hill. I thought of the things which had hap- 
pened, and even more of the things which had 
not happened. Those honest eyes, those bright 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


37 


faces, which I had just seen, set my mind to 
better tune ; I turned and waved another fare- 
well to the pair as they stepped merrily after us 
through the crisp, brown leaves. Love is not 
dead. Against the bare trees, the clear western 
sky, were poetry and youth visible as warrants 
of his unfading prime and moving to his eternal 
music. — I took heartily little interest in the 
stock-farm. 


IV 


Trimalchio’s Dinner 

Why this title, pray ? Why Trimalchio, Mr. 
Wild, why Trimalchio ? I could find you such 
a pompous, vulgar, and ridiculous upstart in this 
good city of ours, yes ; but his name is not Cards. 
Cards is not of that breed; Cards is a man of 
imposing presence, as his portrait yonder in the 
Academy exhibition will testify ; and his eyes 
are keen with other lights than those of mere 
money-getting, than those, even, which threaten 
and command as leader of the financial world. 
He is urbane, reticent, of cosmopolitan habit of 
thought ; the full grace of letters may not be in 
him, but its shadow long rested on him in aca- 
demic days, and he is a judicious reader still. 
He has written now and then, in sound English, 
an article of conservatively optimistic tone on 
problems of his world. Cards a Trimalchio ? — 
Nonsense. 

Nevertheless, this is Trimalchio’s dinner. Tri- 
malchio is here, in many a phase, as guest, and 
Trimalchio’s own guests are here, — sycophant, 

38 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


39 


flatterer, — and cynic, did you say ? — yes, cynic. 
I wish I held that other cynic’s pen ! And if the 
slave and the dancing-girl and the hired bully all 
fling me a negative by their absence, tell me, I 
beg you, how far one has to go from these re- 
spectable walls to find slave and girl and bully 

crouching in the shadows, sure of hire Tri- 

malchio’s dinner it shall be. 

The Reverend Doctor de Ligny has long since 
asked a Presbyterian blessing upon the good 
things which unspeakable and unsearchable 
Providence has showered upon us, its unworthy 
creatures ; and the good things of a solid sort 
have fairly disappeared down our appreciative 
throats. Chairs are now pushed back or drawn 
closer for congenial groups ; and the loud chatter 
of voices, bursts of laughter cognizant or recogni- 
zant of wit, occasional sameness of monologue, 
all contrast with that respectful hum which ac- 
companied the business of eating. Wild revelry 
is not here ; but there are men whom no author- 
ity short of death shall keep from their drink. 
Judge Sandville, of our county court, who plays 
the best hand at poker in the state, has brewed 
a great bowl of punch. Far past his threescore, 
the judge can drink the drink of ten, unscathed, 
— probably not for Galahad’s reason, — and he 
is the idol of every minor criminal, particularly 


40 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


the African contingent, within the reach of his 
court ; no decent political “ pull 99 ever failed to 
find response in Judge Sandville’s generous breast. 
His rival in carrying liquor is Judge Bigge from 
far up the state. With these two as props of 
hilarity, things are very pleasant by the punch- 
bowl. Yonder, to be sure, sits a man who 
cleaves to Apollinaris and has the air of read- 
ing his Bible in public. But he is a mere 
punctuation-mark. Nearly everybody is smok- 
ing. The crowd is too large for adjournment 
to one of the smaller rooms ; but then, who 
would wish to leave this famous hall ? 

Brilliantly lighted, with its admirable scheme 
and decorations, it nevertheless seems just a 
trifle discontented at so many suits of black, 
such sameness of shirt-front ; even the huge 
diamond studs, flashing sporadically under cer- 
tain crimson and political countenances, fail to 
atone for women’s variety of dress. On the 
other hand, this monotony of array serves to 
set off the differences which one can observe at 
close range in the human face more or less 
divine ; one sees nothing else. With women in 
the affair, men’s expressions fall into an uninter- 
esting deference shaded only by the respective ad- 
mixture of cynicism ; but when, as here, one has 
simply halted the front rank of success purely 
male, and when Plutus asks Bacchus for his 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


41 


flash-light, the photograph ought to be worth 
while. From Cards down to yonder political 
pew-opener, every face testifies to an owner 
who in some way has outstripped his competi- 
tors, whatever the class, the contest, the value 
of the prize. It is prevailingly the American face, 
just now full of a raw delight in its new exalta- 
tion before the world ; its type is of keen 
eye and heavy jaw, reading always success in 
terms of solid cash. It is not the type of fifty 
years ago, as you will see if you care to pick out 
the best of these Trimalchians and make a group 
of them to match that old engraving, which one 
saw aforetime on so many walls, of Clay address- 
ing his brother senators. Idealize the moderns 
at will, for the others are idealized ; but keep the 
type. You will find that these modern faces, 
gaining in squareness and motive power, have 
lost that hovering and elusive but unmistakable 
element of the ideal which you note in Clay, and 
which, at its best, impresses one so powerfully 
in the features of a Lincoln. The lean and 
hungry look of a nobler desire is gone; this 
new face is more contented, more despicable. 
Money, not power of the old sort, is now the 
standard ; and money has sent that dethroned 
ideal to haunt other American faces than these 
of the ranks of success. Not a man of the nor- 
mal guests at this banquet who is in any wise 


42 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


poor by choice ; not a face has its mark of 
renunciation, of sacrifice, of devotion to any 
ideal in art, letters, statesmanship, religion. 
Men with such a mark are to be found through- 
out these United States, and found in plenty ; 
but they come not within the house of Cards. 
Of the actual guests, I figure that about one- 
third are gentlemen ; that is, they have “ the 
instinct of behaviour.” Another third are men 
whose lack of this instinct finds compensation 
in a rough, hearty, common-sense fairness of 
appeal, robust vigour of action, and in a char- 
acter abnormally sensitive to certain claims of 
the personal conscience, abnormally callous on 
the side of communal ethics, — in short, that 
bundle of civic paradoxes which we call “ Ameri- 
can,” because there is no other name for it. The 
final third are either successful criminals or lucky 
cads. And if for but one serious and active 
hour my first third and second third would take 
counsel of that vanished group of fifty years ago, 
would consult the discredited ideals, then this 
final third of mine would be divided promptly 
between the workhouse and the jail. As it is, 
they set the national pace, these thieves and 
procurers 

I start from my re very. Eliot is smiling at 
my grimaces and mutterings. I essay to point 
him out the great men among our guests ; but 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


43 


the lights burn too brightly for me, and the 
smoke fogs my glasses. I give it up, finding a 
better Cicerone at my elbow ; and I introduce 
Eliot to Bob Pulliss, our lawyer. Some men will 
not have much to do with Bob Pulliss ; but if 
you accept Sir Shark himself, why balk at the 
clever little pilot that dodges about at Sir 
Shark’s command ? 

Our “ young Napoleon ” of the bar is fifty, and 
well past it ; but he plays the rude, frank boy 
for all the snow that powders his thick and 
shaggy hair. Robert Pulliss, of the law firm 
of Sharp, Pulliss, and Reighcoff — Sharp, as we 
all know, is on the bench and Reighcoff is in 
councils — began his career as an eloquent orator 
in the college debating-society ; he shook the 
arsenal, and fulmined over Greece, for reform in 
the civil service, reform in civic things, reform 
everywhere. He was a keen worker in the law- 
academy. Hardly admitted to the bar, he plunged 
into reform again, and “ ran ” for council. Here, 
first, he showed his practical side, giving the 
party leaders a vivid little scare, and winning 
over two professional politicians of his district. 
Of course they sold him out to the other candi- 
date ; and Pulliss, who had figured on all chances 
except absolute perjury and treason, settled down 
to a practice of law which had every omen of 
success save clients. Somehow he could make 


44 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


no headway. Angrily he planned an onslaught 
on certain legislation, not invulnerable, made by 
the city in the interest of a great company ; and 
was hot on his scheme when he received two 
visits. One was from an emissary of the cor- 
poration ; he left Pulliss with suave farewell and 
an ultimatum that turned the young lawyer’s 
face white. Presently the same face went red 
with anger as the two traitor politicians hove in 
view. But they soon showed him that they had 
acted under orders. They flattered Pulliss’s im- 
portance, ability ; regretted, in Fescennine jocosi- 
ties, his postponed wedding ; and finally made 
their bid. Pulliss was to cease from troubling, 
take a fat job, consecrate his talents to the 
regular party, and see how fast fortune would 
smile upon him. “ A hat full of money, Pulliss ; 
a barrel of opportunities ; and nobody goes back 
on you inside the rails. You know that. Think 
it over, — this is straight from the Old Man.” 

Pulliss did think it over. To-day he is the 
greatest of all the political lawyers. You mark 
him slipping into a corporation’s inner rooms, 
gliding into the forbidden chamber of a political 
leader who “ will see positively no one,” or, in 
his own office, whispering with the two or three 
new-fashioned millionaires who are to put their 
money behind — not into, no, no, — behind a 
venture which shall set the speculative public 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


45 


aflame for privilege to occupy a far and crowded 
corner of the trap. That is legal Pulliss. Pul- 
liss convivial, in the car, on the street, at the 
club, is another man. He has a loud laugh, tells 
a racy tale, slaps on the back and is slapped, 
plays a fierce game of poker, and looks, when he 
is not talking, haggard, cynical, and old. I have 
a sneaking fondness for him ; and I present him 
to Waltham Eliot as the wickedest lawyer I 
know, naming the youth as an intending Hercu- 
les, and bidding Pulliss tell what he can of the 
stables that are now to be cleaned so thoroughly. 

— “Picturesque old ruin, the Major, ain’t he?” 
I hear Pulliss say with scant attempt at a con- 
fidence. 

“ Delightful man,” says Eliot ; “ Pm his guest. 
. . . No, never mind. Tell me all about these 
dukes here, Mr. Pulliss ! For a start, who is the 
pallid person yonder ? ” 

“That? Old ‘Wash’ White. Just sent to 
Congress ; and I’m sorry for it. Limit, isn’t he ? 
When a man used to tell me he was going to 
Congress, I said ‘keep it dark, then; nobody 
would suspect you. You look decent enough for 
your friends to deny it.’ But this is too much. 
Congress, even, doesn’t deserve such punishment 
as ‘ Wash ’ White.” 

“ I agree with you,” said Eliot. “ And the 
affable, easy-looking man with the moustache, 


46 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


who is not paying any attention whatever to 
Wash’s soft applications?” 

“ That is our great man — in the city. That’s 
the boss. Huns the whole show. He can make 
any man anything, and can kick any man out of 
office from the Mayor . . . up.” 

“ May that ankle never swerve 
From its exquisite reserve,” 

quoted Eliot, with a laugh. This was all amus- 
ing, and by no means dangerous. “Why, the 
man looks amiable enough.” 

“ Never goes back on his friends, that’s sure.” 

“ Next him ? ” 

“ That’s old Bluffe, — president of the Garbage 
Club.” 

“ And the heavy-faced man listening yonder, 
with his eyes half shut, to the ruddy sport ? ” 

“ That ? Don’t know him f That’s Gane- 
wood.” 

“ Ganewood ! ” Eliot stared. The cartoons 
made a mess of the face, then. That man Gane- 
wood ? But, after a moment, the Bostonian, now 
in poetical vein, quoted a couplet more true than 
any cartoon : — 

“Feet in the jungle that leave no mark, 

Eyes that can see in the dark, in the dark. . . . 

He is grim.” 

“ Grim, eh ? Yes. — Talk books with him, and 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


47 


you’ll swear he’s librarian of the British Mu- 
seum But if you want to play with the 

political animals, — don’t ; if you must, though, 
just don’t begin with him.” 

“ I should like to ask him a dozen straight 

questions about Pennsylvania politics ” 

“ And I’ll see that your corpse goes to your 
friends.” 

“ Thanks. — And the ruddy sport ? ” 

— “Oh, that’s another congressman, — our aris- 
tocrat, Olcutt. Cards put him into Congress, — 
son of somebody who did things for Cards in the 
old days. This chap comes from Oxford; com- 
bination of Anglicized gentleman and American 
politician. I’ll take you to his bachelor quar- 
ters some day. Over the fireplace he has a Latin 
inscription ! I think it was found at Baiae, those 
old sinners’ Saratoga and Newport in one. I put 
it once into free English for the politicians : — 

Dice and women and wine lay waste our bodies, and yet 
what 

Else has life worth while save dice and women and wine ? 

And it’s blank near right, eh ? Don’t you grin 
when you see people going to church ? ” 

“ Not yet.” 

“Wait till you’ve lived here awhile, then. 
Only the churches will be empty. Who believes 
in anything ? ” 


48 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


“ Individual consciences are still alive. So is 
the national conscience, — if we could appeal 
to it.” 

“The post-mortem was held sometime ago in 
Philadelphia, at any rate. If you have a con- 
science about you, my advice is to chuck it out. 
Pay your bills, of course, and be decent to your 
family, and send a cheque now and then to a 
soup-kitchen or a fresh-air fund. Get enthusi- 
astic over a boulevard to the park, and subscribe 
liberally to the symphony concerts, — that’s all 
right. But don’t be queasy about the illegal 
registration, and the stuffed ballot-boxes, and, 
above all, the city contracts. If you kick there, 

you’re lost Oh, I know what I’m saying. I 

sat for your picture, Mr. Eliot, at five-and-twenty ! 
At forty you’ll sit — no, no, not for mine, no, but, 
we’ll say, for Cards’s ” 

“ I won’t discuss Mr. Cards. But see here, you 
know that conscience isn’t the handicap you’d 
make it out. You believe in conscience ! ” 

“ You think so ? ” — Pulliss’s mask of bluff and 
slang was visibly thinner ; a face came dimly 
into view which had once given tryst to the 
ideal. “You can’t carry it, Eliot,” he said, look- 
ing kindly at the Bostonian ; “ no. I was once 
as keen as you are. I tell you frankly, either 
make your compromise as high as you can, — 
higher than I did, God knows, — or else teach 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


49 


Greek, Mensuration, and the Chemistry of Agri- 
culture in a Nebraska college. Buy an aban- 
doned farm. Study the habits of animals. 
Lecture on Florentine Art and the Beautiful 
Soul. There are several ways to earn an honest 
living. But don’t try corporation law on a con- 
science — here in Philadelphia.” 

“ Why did you back down ? ” 

The mask was put on again tight. — “ I ? Oh, 
— I wanted to get married. Eh? And my 
bride to be, though charming, was sans dot . . . 
sans dot. — Going to be a hard winter, you think ? 
Very likely. And Cards gives one a stunning 
good wine, doesn’t he ? The judge, too, brews 
good punch : why don’t you drink it ? Or look 
at those small politicians ” 

“ I’m not interested in the minor disreputabili- 
ties. The problem is how to keep out of their 
way.” 

“Pay them to move on, as Cards does.” 

“ No. Let’s drive them out ! ” Eliot pounded 
the table, and appealed to the submerged reformer 
in his companion. “ Think of our courts, — of 
our noble old common law.” 

Pulliss laughed. “ Courts, eh, and noble 
old common law? — Judge!” he cried aloud, 
“ Judge ! ” 

« Well, Bobby ? ” came a voice from the vicin- 
ity of the punch-bowl. “ What is it, Bobby ? ” 


50 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


“Come here and welcome a new member of 
our bar ! . . . Ah ! Take my seat. Judge, I pre- 
sent Mr. Waltham Eliot, late of Boston, who is 
going to essay those lucubrationes viginti annorum 
which make a Philadelphia lawyer.” 

Judge Bigge had come ponderously over to 
the pair. “ Bobby,” he said, “ go mount guard 
over that punch. And don’t let ’em thin it ! As 
Daniel Webster said to the barkeep, ‘ don’t 
inundate that liquor!’ Eh? — Well, sir! I am 
pleased to meet you. — This chair of yours 
strong, Bobby? We reverse the saying of scrip- 
ture; Moses sits in the scribes’ and pharisees’ 
seat, — and Moses weighs over two hundred. 
Ha ! Lucubrationes viginti annorum , eh ? That’s 
in Blackstone ; you don’t know Blackstone, 
Bobby. I learned it out yonder by the Ohio 
border, after I’d taught district school all day, 
sitting by a tallow-dip in a house you’d condemn 
for your chickens. — Friend of Cards, sir ? Ha ! 
Lucubrationes... No! If you start under those 
auspices, it will be lubricationes — and of a very 
few months ! ” 

Eliot laughed — as who could help laughing? — 
not so much at the jest as at the twinkle in that 
keen old eye. Pulliss, with his own chuckling, 
boyish shout, went off to exchange chaff with 
men of punch ; and Eliot was alone with the 
judge. Our veteran had been thirsty ; his flash 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


51 


of shrewdness soon faded away ; though he car- 
ried his great freightage of liquor with a stateli- 
ness and a composure beyond all precedent, he 
was come to the stage where, under cover of 
sonorous sentences, rolling eye, and a gracious, 
almost paternal manner, he allowed distinctly 
ominous confidences to leap the hedge of his 
teeth. Father of the bar, he said, he welcomed 
Waltham Eliot with great emotion, as a son, — 
“ a son-in-law, eh ? ” He repeated his little jest, 
grew suddenly grave, glanced at Cards, and 
again at Eliot. “ We must not trifle,” he said 
solemnly ; and began a formal speech as if he 
were giving one of his ponderous charges, enjoy- 
ing the turns of phrase and dwelling on the big 
words. 

“ Sir, I can see that you are virtuous, temper- 
ate, assiduous, of unusual capacity and promise ! 
I welcome you to our Pennsylvania bar. We 
need new blood, sir. Between you and me, there 
is too much corruption stalking in the very 
shadow of the bench ; and no one knows as I do the 
temptations to which an underpaid justiciary is 
exposed. Distrust the corporations ! Sir, the 
electorate has vanished ; you appeal to it in vain. 
The press, where not venal, is impotent. There 
remain, sir, but the devil in the party-leader who 
disposes and receives, and the deep sea in the 
corporation which arranges and pays ! — 


52 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


“ My country, ? tis of thee, 

Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing ! ” 

The judge’s eyes were moist, and he bent over to 
Eliot in patriarchal emotion. “ I will give you, 
my young friend, a chapter from my own event- 
ful life. Strictest confidence, eh ? ” Eliot 
nodded. The sinking of Solon in Silenus was 
fairly accomplished. 

“Some years ago, I was the justice whose lot 
made him hand down the decision in a great 
clash of corporations and public interests. — You 
don’t drink much punch? Well, that’s right. 
But age must have his staff. .'. I went deep into 
the law of that case, and I held it under the 
most anxious advisement. The corporations 
were excited, and had their vile emissaries buzz- 
ing about me. Sir, I took no pains to conceal 
from these pitiful fellows, with their basely 
hinted proffers of a fat cheque, that my decision 
would be adverse to their selfish, mercenary 
interests. The tenor of my forthcoming opinion 
was noised about the inner circles; wider it 
spread ; and prices fell, — fell, — my stars, 
young man, how they did fall ! Now look here, 
young man, you know it is no light thing to bear 
the responsibility of a depreciating decision. I 
grew restive. Here was I, a judge, a patriot, a 
lover of my fellow-men, piling trouble right up 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


53 


in the path of a common carrier.” The judge 
suddenly laughed. “ Funny, ain’t it ? ” Then 
he grew very grave again. “Sir, I fairly ached 
over that decision. The thing was assumed as 
certain, settled. And prices fell, — fell ! Sir, 
night after night, when deep sleep falls upon 
men ... by the turtles, I’ll sleep, though, to- 
night 1 . . . when deep sleep falls upon men, I 
searched the law to see if I were not justified in 
a more liberal interpretation of our statutes and 
decisions. I called in a wary and silent friend 
to help me, a learned man, — the solicitor of our 
mightiest corporation. Night after night I had 
closed my books, and like the young man in the 
Bible — you read regularly, I trust, in the sacred 
volume ? — I had gone away sorrowful. But 
now a great light came to me. I saw my little 
error. I prepared a new decision, turning 
squarely from the old, a just and upright de- 
cision, on the side of our busy highways of 
traffic. Walter, — I think your name is Walter, 
and I am very fond of you, — Waiter, stand by 
the common carrier, and the common carrier’ll 
stand by you ! Eh ? ” — It was wonderful to 
see the judge suppress the foolish little laugh 
which the liquor in him set up, and put his iron 
will to work again for comparatively straight 
talk. He went on. — “You can’t pick a flaw in 
that decision. George H. Standish tried it, — 


54 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


and George H. Standish picked a peck of troubles. 
Peter Piper picked ... Eh ? Hah ! Yes, sir. 
And when I saw how bad men were still antici- 
pating my earlier opinion, pulling down the 
value of those splendid properties, I knew my 
duty, — and backed ’em up. Yes, sir, I knew 
my duty. I backed ’em up. Sir, — in your 
ear, — I made sacrifices that would astonish you. 
I sold, borrowed, pledged, — through safe parties, 
sir. I even mortgaged my ancestral farm in 
Potter County. And I read my decision.” 
— At this memory, and the thought of his right- 
eousness, tears came again into the stern old 
judge’s eyes. — “ Well, how those stocks did soar ! 
I made, sir, — in your ear, young man, — I made, 
Walter, I made ...” He looked around, then 
laughed merrily. “ No, by Jings, I won’t tell 
you. Bully punch, isn’t it ? Bobby ! — Bring 
me some more. — Walter, Pd like to adopt you 
as a son ” 

Waltham Eliot rose as Pulliss came up with 
supplies for the judge. “Take my chair, if you 
will — and thank you. Judge, good evening for 
the present.” He bowed to both, and turned to 
me. I looked at him narrowly. “ Youngster,” 
I said, « you need a change of air ! ” And with 
a parting jest from Pulliss, we walked arm in arm 
along the tables. I was hunting for another kind 
of Philadelphian ; and presently I found him. 


V 


Up to this point the remedy which Cards had 
selected for undue reforming zeal in Eliot could 
hardly be called an unqualified success. The 
young fellow’s face reminded me of his uncle 
long years ago when some chance acquaintance 
would begin to tell robustly facetious stories. 
And I am bound to say that I myself became 
troubled in spirit ; I was now heart and soul 
with Cards in his design upon the youth, not 
only for the cause itself, but in my own shame 
as one who had railed indiscriminately at our 
institutions and our public men. What if this 
fearful satiric gift of mine had ruined Eliot’s 
chances for life and happiness by kindling his 
quixotic fires? I looked again at his counte- 
nance, and said : “ That was no fair sample of 
our law. But here is business pure and unde- 
filed in the person of our great railway expert, 
Mr. Ossian Malstrem, to whom I present you ; ” 
and I made him sit cosily by this illustrious per- 
son, a man still under fifty, of middle size, with 
closely clipped hair and beard, hard eyes, gray, 
clear, and an even voice. 

55 


56 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


“ Cheer up this boy, Oss,” I said. “ He’s been 
talking with Bigge. Show him the real thing, 
— wheels going around, and all that. No poli- 
tics ! ” — He looked keenly at Eliot. 

“You ccmH talk politics with me, even in 
business.” 

“ Why don’t you talk business in politics, then, 
sir ? Taxpayer, — and that City Hall ! ” 

“ Admire it ? ” 

“ An outrage ! ” 

“Precisely. But where do / come in?” 

“ In allowing it.” 

“ My dear sir ! Flattered, I’m sure ! But 
4 allow,’ — that’s the college point of view, I 
suppose? Or the Major’s? The Major has 
worked wonders in our political world ” 

“ Nonsense, Oss,” said I. “ Come. Cheer the 
fellow up a bit ; talk straight to him. I wish 
you would tell him what you once told me, — 
about granger legislation and the railways. I 
thought it had some sense in it.” 

“ Thanks,” said Malstrem, in his grave, ironical 
way. — “Well, Mr. Eliot, I should be glad to 
see you at my place over by the Delaware. I 
bought it of a politician, who, strange to say, 
went to pieces, — smashed. He called it, oddly 
enough, 4 The Grafts ’ ; but that was before we 
had the slang in its modern political sense.” 

“Proddem,” I interjected, “as they used to 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


57 


call the man, was a graft himself, and the worst 
we have : Irish bogwood and American slippery- 
elm.” 

“Well, I bought his place, and I’ll keep the 
name. Now, Mr. Eliot, come over there, and 
I’ll show you my roses ; they’re the best in the 
country, and, as the Major will tell you, I inherit 
the taste for them from my mother. How do I 
raise such beauties ? Well, I use plenty of ma- 
nure. Simple, isn’t it, — and uninteresting ? We 
talk about the roses ; in polite conversation we 
don’t talk about the manure. Personally, I don’t 
investigate the manure ; I pay for it, and my 
men buy it. The roses won’t grow without 
it. It costs a great deal. In the early spring 
it makes a bad smell, — isn’t at all pleasant 
for a while ; but at last we have the roses. 
At college you call that an allegory. — Try to 
raise your roses without a fertilizer, if you like ; 
run your business without regarding politics, — 
if you like. Then see where you come out. Do 
you suppose we railroad men want to touch poli- 
tics ? Not we ! But remember the granger days. 
Think how every little hayseed politician would 
have his bill up for a ‘ strike.’ Now the boss 
calls them all down. We have to see the boss. 
Find me a better way, — I’ll walk in it ! Give us 
something better than our crude railway legisla- 
tion, insure us against interruption, and I’ll order 


58 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


Ganewood himself kicked out of my outside office. 
— Mr. Eliot, you’re young ; pardon me, sir, — but 
that’s your trouble.” 

« In New England,” began Eliot. . . . 

“You haven’t exactly model railroads, now, 
have you ? ” broke in Malstrem, with a chuckle 
and a furtive wink at me. He had said the last 
word on politics. “ Why, sir, up there you are 
behind the times ! ” 

« Our commissioners ...” 

“ Fine ! Great institution ! But what service, 
what road-beds, — and as for speed ! Why, I 

was up there in my car last summer ” 

This was safe ground, and I turned away ; 
Eliot’s reluctant smile showed his appreciation of 
Malstrem both as master of fence and as a gentle- 
man. I made room for myself in the circle about 
Cards, where were gathered sundry of the choicer 
spirits. Foremost was De Ligny the Presbyterian 
parson, robust, aggressive, something of the dandy 
in his dress, but prompt to defend any attack on 
church or faith. He is very rich, splendidly 
generous when he pleases and is pleased, a 
mighty hunter and fisherman, entertaining roy- 
ally in his great palace by the Northern Sea, 
where he spends his summers. He is a man’s 
man now ; would it had been always thus ! 
Alas, he began as an emotional and dramatic 
preacher ; women fought for a word from him ; 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


59 


and that sermon on « Resignation,” — surely, you 
remember what stir it made up and down the 
land ! In a pernicious game of cards, he said, 
— he was preaching at the funeral of an only 
child, — it was well known that one’s partner 
often called upon one for one’s best card. . . . 
“ Partner, your best ! I play the game alone.” 
How cheerfully you give up that card ! But 
when, in the great Game of Life, that Partner . . . 
and so on. It made an immense sensation, — and, 
as a result of it, the daughter of a great pill- 
manufacturer gave her best, to wit, her heart and 
her millions, to De Ligny ; but he dislikes any 
mention of it now. His style is terse, authorita- 
tive, welcome to men. He writes manly essays, 
cheery and optimistic poems. When he lectures 
for a charity, he gives for choice his easy remi- 
niscences : “ Crowned Heads and Others that I 
have Seen.” He is a buttress of things as they 
are ; makes no contemporary references in his 
sermons ; is a very Hobbes for conformity and 
common sense. Cards decidedly approves of him 
as one who awes the radical ; now and then 
De Ligny sees the banker, who usually braves his 
own services and rector, taking a day off to hear 
this robust alien. Just now, as I join the group, 
De Ligny is upholding dogma. 

“ I remember talking to Gladst’n’ about this 
very thing. How are you, Major Heigh ? — Yes. 


60 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


‘ Take the church out of society,’ I said, ■ and 
where are you ? ’ ‘ Exactly so,’ says Gladst’n’. 

‘ And never mind about the church,’ I made 
bold to say, — ‘your English establishment or 
my Scotch ; where’s society f ’ ‘ Precisely,’ said 

Gladst’n’. And there it is, Cards. I know all the 
arguments. Who doesn’t? — science and force, 
and all the rest of it. It doesn’t worry me. 
Some of the parsons go in for Higher Criticism, — 
a good rope, I tell them, a good rope. It will 
hang them all higher than Haman. ‘ Higher ’ 
indeed ! We all try a little atheism, and that 
sort of thing, in our youth. Why, you, Signior 
Host, you went through it in the Harvard days, 
I think ; — ‘ personal enemy of Jehovah,’ as dear 
old Heine puts it, eh ? ” 

“ I was indeed.” Cards smiled at the remem- 
brance, and pushed some choice cigars to the 
cleric. “ Your ash has fallen, De Ligny. Take 
a fresh cigar, like Prince Florizel.” 

“ And you know your Stevenson, too, Cards ! 
Ah, how one’s friends pass away ! I can see 
dear Louis now, as if it were this morning, with 
Glazier and Painter and Blower and Feeder and 
all those charming fellows at the Secular Club 
dinner ! And thanks, — I will.” 

De Ligny lighted his cigar and looked about 
him. New arrivals were drawing up their chairs. 
He approved of the immediate group, with two 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


61 


exceptions, — a well-known pair recently ad- 
mitted, after a thrilling series of escapades just 
inside the marches of legal swindling, to the seats 
of high finance. Crowned with national and 
even international importance, their countenances 
shone in that holy boldness at which shadows of 
the past must flee away. But De Ligny turned 
his unterrified sarcasm upon them. “ I should 
think,” he almost sneered, looking one of the 
Dioscuri in the face, “ that you would see 
things at night, sir, — and hear them, too. Don’t 
the lambs bleat in your dreams ? You have 
visited the widow and the fatherless in their 
affliction, and relieved them of . . . yes, relieved 
them.” 

The twin flushed a little. The great smash in 
Transparent Brick was still a sensation of the day, 
and optimistic advice, even to friends, had been 
his specialty. But he kept his temper. “ Why 
don’t they stay out of the market?” he said. 
“ If you walk on the tracks,” — a shrug, seen and 
copied abroad, finished his sentence. But Cards 
turned back from a fresh handshake with old 
Dr. Leary, the chairs closed in again, and our 
literary set was in control. And what a set it 
is! Than old Dr. Leary, I think, there is no 
kinder gentleman and no pleasanter man of 
letters in all this country. And there, too, is 
Harden Croudley, who writes for the news- 


62 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


papers, is the greatest scholar in Browning mat- 
ters now alive, and is known all over Philadelphia 
and its environs as speaker, lecturer, reader, the 
wale of good fellows at a feast. He jumps 
about a bit nimbly in his editorial views, yes ; 
but then, what is there that Croudley cannot do 
in literary criticism and in penetration of Brown- 
ing’s worst? With him has come Wyeth, the 
professor, who would in all seriousness have 
filled that chair of things in general about which 
Carlyle made his clumsy fun. He knows every- 
thing, really ; and he writes papers for every sort 
of society, on every topic, with impartial sweep 
and plunge. He can cover any surface and dive 
to any depth, and he is said to be making a 
cyclopaedia out of his own knowledge. Listen to 
these two men, — a random snatch of their talk 
as they come up 

“Ay, ay, Croudley. It must be. We must 
pass laws in every state against the marriage of 
persons tainted with tuberculosis. In Philadel- 
phia alone, last month, and north of Market 
Street, three hundred and nineteen couples were 
married who had the fatal tendency. It must 
be done ! ” 

“ No, Wyeth, no.” 

“ And why not, pray ? ” 

“ Keats ! ” — 

That is how science and literature have a 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


63 


friendly tilt in our New Philadelphia. De Ligny 
nods pleasantly to the formidable trio, and goes 
on with his Stevenson reminiscence. “ Dear, dear 
Louis ! ” — He seems to draw a little circle of 
sanctity about himself as he names the name. 
For De Ligny is just a mite conceited. The last 
flickering of poor old Mrs. Willy Candoe’s wit 
was when somebody referred to De Ligny as 
“ one of the fishing parsons.” “ Ah,” said Mrs. 
Willy, in her old Boston tone, which our bright 
women try so vainly to imitate, “ Ah, yes. I 
noted the ^cA-theology.” — The divine now went 
back to his theme about church and world. 

“ Here is the point,” he said. “ A nation must 
have authority somewhere in its institutions, or 
they will fall. Only the church can offer such 
authority. Never mind the logic. Jowett — ah, 
those Balliol dinners! — Jowett signed the thirty- 
nine articles. Dean Swift, now, ...” 

“ You never dined with him, did you, De 
Ligny ? ” Dr. Leary smiled his sting away, and 
the parson smiled in return. “ No,” said the lat- 
ter, “ jesting apart, let me advise you gentlemen 
one and all, if you wish to cut your coupons in 
peace, — stand for theology.” We all looked at 
Dr. Leary, who says such notable things. 

“ Theology ? Well, De Ligny, I am no enemy 
to it ; but for me, literature is the first word and 
the last. Friends and books, — books and friends; 


64 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


that is my device. I cannot decide your ques- 
tions for you, and you are happy in your faith. 
We have all wept and laughed and pondered 
over this life of ours for long centuries ; and we 
can say no more of it after all than to call it a 
patch of human loneliness lapped in ignorance, 
and can do no more for it than to put a little 
fellowship into the loneliness and to cover the 
ignorance with a thin veil of hope. Your digni- 
fied office, De Ligny, is to watch over the weav- 
ing of that veil. For me, as I said, the weeping, 
the laughing, the pondering, — literature.” 

“Literature can no longer make us weep or 
laugh,” said Croudley. “We don’t ask anymore 
who is the happiest, but who is the least miser- 
able ” 

“ And I say,” — it is Elbert-Kelley’s excited 
drawl cutting across from the next table, closing 
out the common theme, — “ not every man who 
has wristbands on his shirt is a gentleman ; but 
no man is a gentleman if he wears detachable 
cuffs.” 

“ There is your happiest man, Croudley,” said I. 

“ I’m not sure, though,” resumed Cards, taking 
v up De Ligny’s former assertion, “that you can 
maintain the old theology.” 

Wyeth, a stout agnostic, quoted Stendhal’s 
word that the only excuse for the creator is his 
non-existence* and Croudley protested that there 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


65 


is no theology any longer, but just sociology. 
De Ligny ignored both. He was answering 
Cards. 

“ You, of all men, Cards, should not reject 
theology.” 

“ Why ? ” 

“Because you can’t afford to fall back upon 
ethics.” — I chuckled over this, but De Ligny 
remarked that he was serious, not scurrilous. 
De Ligny is a pompous person, — trying to snub 
me! — “No, no, Cards,” he went on; “if you 
rest your case on mere morals, the ethical-culture 
folk w 7 ill give you, first, a bad quarter-hour ; 
then the socialists will make that quarter-hour 
seem bliss. No, sir ; stick to theology ” 

“ Ah , Cards ! Cards ! Attention, please ! Hi ! ” 
It was Malstrem’s sharp voice that startled us. 
“ Rap for silence. Your young friend has a story 
to tell me. I guyed him about his Yankee rail- 
roads, and he gets it back with the old corpora- 
tion cry and a new story. I’m not selfish. Let 
us all hear it . . . Mr. Eliot’s story ! ” 

Cards showed some annoyance as a chorus 
of calls arose in echo of Malstrem. Speeches of 
the formal sort were not welcomed as a rule at 
these dinners, but they occurred now and then ; 
while a good story, if decent, was always in 
order. He ought, however, to protect his guest. 


66 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


“ Let him tell it, Linsey,” I whispered. 
« Safety-valve. He’s game. Look at him.” Cards 
nodded. 

“ Have you a story, Eliot ? ... If the gentle- 
men wish, and you are willing . . 

“ Mr. Eliot’s story ! ” The cry was unani- 
mous ; and Malstrem slipped back into his chair 
with a malicious smile dodging about the bearded 
mouth, — a smile which only increased when 
Cards, bland now as May, assured the guests 
that if the tale had Malstrem’s backing, it would 
be choice. “ Don’t spare him, Mr. Eliot. We 
are all at his mercy here in Philadelphia — can’t 
get in or out unless he is willing.” 


VI 


The young fellow rose. I could see that he 
was game all over, like most of these sharp 
Yankees, — lock, stock, and barrel; he would 
see the thing through. He poured out steadily 
half a glass of Apollinaris, looked about him, 
drank, and then began. 

“ It’s not much of a story,” he said in even 
tones, with that touch of a foreign accent that 
Bostonians all affect, “ and I mentioned it to 
Mr. Malstrem simply to show that other com- 
missioners were needed in New England besides 
those who regulate our railways, — to block 
stupidity and greed. Doubtless Pennsylvania 
needs no such supervision.” 

“ Quite right, Walter, quite right. You are in 
God’s country.” And the sympathetic judge 
once more hummed softly, My country , His of 
thee. “ Go on, Walter,” he said paternally. 

“It happened last autumn. You know the 
White Mountain region, gentlemen ? I love 
it. ” 

“ Come to Bar Harbour, Mr. Eliot ! You will 
be fickle in your passion for the woods when 
67 


68 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


you have seen our Cleopatra of Maine.” So 
De Ligny, waving a graceful hand. “ But pray 
pardon my interruption ! — Nice, clean-looking, 
educated gentleman,” he added to Cards ; “ an 
acquisition.” 

“ Well, sir, it does ask some constancy to 
cleave to our lady of New Hampshire ; she is all 
burnt and scarred, you know, with the handi- 
work of the new lumbermen. Still, there are 
some noble forests left. One place I heard about 
where there was considerable hardwood, and the 
foliage was said to surpass anything in the 
whole region ; and thither two chums of mine 
and I went last fall. I recommend the scene to 
you, gentlemen, as a study in nature, in political 
economy, and in corporations.” 

“ Seen our City Hall, and the Filter Beds? . . .” 

“ Shut up, Pulliss ! ” — “ Order in the body 
of the house ! ” — The politicians were waking 
to fun. But Eliot only smiled at this man or 
waved an indulgent gesture to that clamorous 
group. He was in perfect poise. 

“ Well, gentlemen, imagine a valley of exqui- 
site proportions, mainly cleared and quite arable, 
open to the south and running northward to a 
point high up on the slope of forest-covered hills 
that close it in. Follow the road thither, by a 
pretty stream ; soon the farms appear. I didn’t 
count them, but there they were, — the usual 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


69 


thing : comfortable little house, woodshed, barn, 
orchard, and a few fields, — I should say five- 
and-twenty farms in sight, and others hidden 
from the road. Estimate roughly the popula- 
lation of that valley ! ” 

Various replies were made, a few serious, but 
many jocose. 

“ Well, gentlemen, just one solitary human 
being lives there. All is desolate and aban- 
doned as Pompeii.” 

“ Why didn’t you buy a farm or two ? ” — “Or 
take them all?” — “Or open your pores, and 
give it to Boston for a park, — she needs one.” 
— “Or raise beans?” — Humorous inquiries were 
still rife ; but Eliot, who was now fairly master 
of the situation, brought them easily to a close. 

“ Ah ! Why didn't I buy a farm ? Precisely, 
my astute, my potent, grave, and reverend sign- 
iors, — why didn't I buy one, or all ? There 
was none to buy. Enter — Mr. Malstrem ! — 
enter our corporation. A company of indefinite 
resources and unquestionable legislative sanction 
has bought the whole tract, has its caretaker 
there on the slope to prevent a rival destroyer 
from stealing timber, — and will sell to no- 
body.” 

“ What’s wrong in that ? ” 

“ Did I say anything about wrong ? I am tell- 
ing a story, — primarily to Mr. Malstrem, and, by 


70 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


request, to his . . . friends. No, I repeat, you can’t 
buy a farm there if you wish it. What fifty years 
ago was a thriving community, and bred as fine 
a set of men as we can show in this land, sup- 
porting them from cradle to grave, is now a 
desert, owned by the corporation which, as 
you say, is quite within its legal rights. Of 
course it is backed by the railroad, — the great 
road which they say up there to be like 
Louis XIV ; it is the state. And this timber 
company does its perfect work. Whole forests 
are cut off, and not a stick or bush is left ; when 
the work is done, it decamps, leaving so much 
dead land for the towns to levy taxes upon ... if 
they can. And now it has bought this valley. 
Before the last trace of those old farms is gone, 
gentlemen, suppose you see, with my poor eyes, 
a little group of buildings there which once 
formed the heart of the community, — church, 
schoolhouse, and a home or two close by. When 
I was there, the church still stood ; it is pulled 
down now. Corporations have no use for a 
church, and like Macbeth they cannot say 
‘amen.’ But it was there a year ago, that 
church; a rude building. The door was wide 
open. We walked up the aisle, past huddled 
benches ; on the reading-desk lay an old Bible 
. . . now with other bad assets of the corpora- 
tion . . . just as if the preacher had left it there 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


71 


a few minutes before, when the hard-headed folk 
filed out with a good, old-fashioned, rocky New 
England sermon in their gizzards ” 

“ Capital description ! ” And De Ligny gave 
his placid, musical laugh. 

“ Then the schoolhouse, — open, too. But all 
tossed about inside, and upset. An old sleigh 
was stored there, itself falling to pieces, like 
bench and desk and rotting timbers. Indeed, 
one felt a trifle creepy in there, gentlemen. 
Farm life, cattle and poultry, Bibles, — save 
one, — parson, schoolmaster, the farmers and 
their wives, all gone ; but what seemed par- 
ticularly and emphatically gone was this troop 
of shock-headed, sturdy, chattering little Yan- 
kee boys and girls. It was here that I felt most 
keenly the exodus, the flight of the clan. We 
New Englanders are not gipsies ; not Tartar 
tribes ; not gangs of tramps. Gone : and gone 
wiiither ? Of course, yonder in the wood were 
the substitutes, — ignorant, shiftless, roving 
aliens, with their revel on Saturday night, their 
drunken sleep on Sunday, and no need of school- 
house or church ; but I am Yankee born, gentle- 
men, and I felt deserted, alone. Whither had 
my people gone ? 

“ Well, next to the schoolhouse, opposite the 
church, was another place ; and that, by J ove, 
wasn’t deserted. The inhabitants hadn’t left 


72 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


that home, and so far the kindly corporation 
has not evicted them. There was the grave- 
yard.” ' ’ ^ 

It seemed as if the lights burned lower. *A 
queer, stolid eloquence .fyad crept into this 
young man’s impassive and level tone of talk. 
He was coming to his point, / 

“ A little graveyard on the' slope by the side f 
of the road, grassy, with large rocks here and * 
there. Most of the graves had fallen in deplor- 
ably, and the stones were hardly to be seen at 
any distance from where we stood ; the names, 
too, were hard, in many cases, to decipher. But 
there were exceptions, of course. Nearest to us 
was a row of graves with perfectly legible in- 
scriptions, the names often repeated from stone 
to stone, — brothers, cousins, I suppose ; and by 
each of these little mounds, as by some of the 
rest, was planted a tattered, weather-beaten 
Union flag ” 

“ Ha ! Soldiers of our great civil war, and 
martyrs to the Union cause. You are speaking, 
sir, to sympathetic hearts. Go on.” The judge 
was affected. He wagged his colossal head in 
the most elegiac fashion, and whispered hoarsely 
to Pulliss that he was “ very fond of Walter, — 
very fond.” 

“Yes. Soldiers. It seemed to me that nearly 
every able-bodied man in that valley must have 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


73 


gone to the war, and that half of these men 
were killed. Happy fellows who were brought 
home and buried here ! The stream is hidden 
in a little hollow, well beyond the graveyard ; 
but you can hear it murmuring along in the 
silence. ... I am sentimental, you see. I asked 
my friends to walk on a bit while I lingered 
over those graves. I could not leave it all, — 
the little flags, and the hum of the brook, and 
the stillness. ... I had an uncle in the civil war, 
my namesake, who — who died, as you know, 
Mr. Cards.” 

Cards nodded. 

“ And I leaned on a rude bit of fence, and 
stared at those names and at the little flags. It 
was a good while, I fancy. I recurred to a bad 
habit I once had of reciting verses aloud. I 
wasn’t well brought up, you see. Those graves 
made me think of Harry Hotspur’s words just 
before his last fight ; I apologize for quoting 
them in this presence : — 

“ 0 gentlemen , the time of life is short. 

To spend that shortness basely were too long , 

If life did ride upon a dial’s point , 

Still ending with the arrival of an hour . 

But suddenly I came to a stop, and it may be 
I jumped a little ; for a man had come up 
behind me, unnoticed, and was also looking at 
the graves very solemnly indeed; I suppose 


74 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


he thought I was saying prayers over my rela- 
tives. He was the kind of elderly man with a 
large, bright, plaid necktie whom you see in 
our smoking-cars and who asks you to make up 
a party at cards, — or will tell you a merry 
tale. But he was very solemn now, and asked 
me if I were a ‘ Catholic ’ ; he threatened to 
start an illuminative theological conversation. 
I wish he had chosen some other time to chew 
tobacco so aggressively. He was not the lone 
caretaker, it seemed, but a far more important 
personage, — a higher official of the corporation 
itself come here to look over the ground. He 
grew very affable. He spelled out the names 
and asked if they were any of my < folks. 5 
I pointed to the flags. Like you, Judge, he 
arrived rapidly at the conclusion that here were 
soldiers killed in the war of the rebellion, — or 
perhaps he had known of it before. 

“ Oh, he was very affable. He told me with 
glee how, over at the sawmill, he had 4 steered 5 
a legislative committee so that they saw nothing 
they were meant to see and would give the com- 
pany a clean bill. Then he talked of the graves 
at our feet. ‘ Curious,’ he said, < the war made 
tariff, and our business, and prosperity ; and 
these poor devils here made the war ! Went 
to town meetin’, yelled for the old flag, and 
marched off in great shape, — endin’ up here. 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


75 


S’pose they’d not gone to war; — be here now, 
I s’pose, raisin’ crops and kids, lumberin’ a little 
in their fool way, goin’ to quiltin’ and huskin’ 
and hearin’ jays lecture in the schoolhouse or 
church. That’s what, if we hadn’t had the war, 
eh ? No tariff, no prosperity ; that’s all right. 
But so far as these chaps go — jolly, if this un 
wa’n’t born same year as I was ! — ef you jest 
come right down to it,’ and my gentleman 
looked at me with shrewd, confidential eyes, 
‘man to man and barrin’ the prosperity busi- 
ness, you and I see these fellows were fools, — 
dog-gone fools. What did they get out of 
it? Yes, sir, that’s what they were, — plain 
dam fools.’ And he spat handily among the 
graves. 

“ And that is my story. It has a miserable 
anti-climax. It is only a trifling little attempt 
to repay Mr. Malstrem for an interesting tale he 
told me about roses and manure. This is about 
timber and dead men. And it has been uncon- 
scionably long.” 

The seconds of silence that followed were soon 
broken by scattered remarks from neighbour to 
neighbour. De Ligny was enthusiastic. “ I 
wonder,” growled a politician to Pulliss, “ if our 
kid-glove man with the London accent could 
stand up two minutes at the Garbage Club?” 
« An hour,” answered Pulliss, with conviction ; 


76 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


“ any time, — and every time. Can’t you see ? 
He’s keyed right up. ” — Cards spoke. 

« A good story, Eliot. Thank you. For one, 
I candidly admit our atrocious folly in this mat- 
ter of timber and the forests.” 

« Throws back,” said Wyeth, sententiously. 
“ Atavism. Our pioneer blood — bound to cut 
down. Learn to plant !” — He proceeded to give 
accurate statistics of forestry throughout the 
world. 

“ The boy is a poet,” patronized De Ligny. 
“ And a moralist, — eh, Leary ? The brook, 
you know, and the valley ; but the graves, 
too.” 

“For me,” said the doctor, “the story was 
spoiled by that satiric touch. He should have 
made the brook chant its soothing dirge, its 
requiem, and should have left out the superflu- 
ous official.” — De Ligny shook his head and 
turned to speak in a low voice with Cards. 
Wyeth answered Dr. Leary. 

“ But the official is signal of another kind of 
fight, and the modern young men must again en- 
list. I see his point.” 

“ Well ! So do I. But he spoiled the poetry.” 

De Ligny and Cards ceased to talk aside ; and 
the banker said something to Wyeth about Ger- 
man theories of forestry. I crossed over to the 
table where Eliot sat, and was half petrified, in 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


77 


my progress, to hear Ganewood’s heavy voice 
addressing my young charge amid sudden silence. 

“ If you are going into public life, — I hope 
you will go, — avoid sarcasm. It’s a bad asset. 
It never convinced a jury or won an election. 
Keep it for dinners and for us politicians under 

other men’s roofs ” 

“ I think I was within the bounds of . . .” 

“ Certainly ! I am not annoyed. I have had 
worse things than that said to me.” He smiled 
grimly. “ I am even interested. But I think 
you understand me. Take my advice and don’t 
praise dead men at the expense of the living. 
Our time is the best time.” 

“ Suppose I don’t believe that ? Suppose I 
drop sarcasm and say plainly that I think the 
destruction of timber is nothing to the destruc- 
tion of our free electorate, and that real patriot- 
ism is disappearing faster than the forests ? ” 

“ Prove your facts ; ” and Ganewood made his 
rare gesture of emphasis, striking one hand with 
the other. “ There are more patriots in this 
country to-day, and of better quality, than there 
were in 1861. You could raise a bigger army.” 

“ For as ideal a cause ? ” 

“ For any cause.” 

“ I doubt it.” 

“ I know it.” 

The thing clicked like a telegraph instrument. 


78 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


Eliot was not to be put down. “ How,” he said, 
“ about intelligent, independent votes as the 
foundation of democracy, and how about cor- 
poration interference and false ballots ? ” 

“ Well, what about them ? Do you know f ” 

“ Something.” 

— “ Mr. Ganewood ! Mr. Cards ! ” A voice 
came into the dialogue like the horn of Scandi- 
navian doom. It was old Upps “ Perhaps 

I may speak just a word to the young man ? ” 
Well, Cards was in for it now. He had wanted 
Eliot to have a plunge ; but he foresaw no waters 
like these. Upps is my special aversion, the 
politicians’ darling ; and yet it was only fair that 
somebody should speak for the “ boys.” I 
dropped into a chair as the speaker began his 
harangue. 

The Reverend J. Wesley Upps is an incidental 
preacher, a steady theological professor at Rocks 
College, in Freshwater, — Dr. Parvin Coney is 
its popular president, — ,and a regular orator, I 
think they call it “ spellbinder,” at election 
time. State politics and politicians have been 
very grateful to him ; Possome and Chickie are 
his brokers in Philadelphia. His prophecies in 
regard to the legislative outlook are highly valued ; 
and it is well to see him about your appropriation 
for the hospital. He is understood to be “ very 
well off ” indeed ; has a sense of humour ; and 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


79 


can tell a lusty anecdote. In his intimate circle 
of friends he is inexhaustible about a trip abroad 
made with a few choice spirits last year ; they 
were headed for the Holy Land, but suffered 
vexatious and mysterious delays in Paris, coming 
home again without their sprays of palm. Pros- 
perous as Upps is, he still wears the long black 
coat, the full black trousers, the low-cut black 
waistcoat, the not too recent linen, the wisp of a 
white necktie, — just as he still teaches his un- 
terrified theology and prays at prayer-meetings 
his fog-horn prayer. His chinbeard is black, 
wiry ; cheeks and upper lip are smooth. In the 
home district he still addresses all women as 
“ sister ” ; and he commands a wide range of 
human sympathy in that he has a daughter called 
Marne. I met that young person once in a rail- 
way train, was fairly forced into a seat beside 
her by the unctuous Upps, and heard her dis- 
course five miles If I had a daughter, her 

name would be Harriet ; and she should dress 
like the English girls in the frontispiece of an 
old “ annual ” ; and she would carry a faint, 
faint perfume like lavender ; and she would have 
a slender neck, and be shy ; and her voice — 
seldom heard — would be low and soft. She 
would not call me “ pappa ” in public and “ pap ” 

in private Upps is a friend of Ganewood, 

and he is absolutely no fool. But how in the 


80 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


deuce comes he to be at this dinner? — Well, my 
boy is in for the whole affair ; he might as well 
hear the politicians’ side from Upps as from any 
one. In fact, as I listen, I am not so sure that 
Upps cannot put things fairly straight and cer- 
tainly very hard. . . . Hark ! — 

“ If our young friend,” — and the penetrating 
nasal voice, the atrocious r, the correct but wo- 
fully illiterate language, cannot disguise a certain 
gift of oratory, a certain assurance of attention 
from everybody in the room, — “ If our young 
friend feels solicitous about the future of this 
country, let him fix his eye on two sources of 
trouble : the man who sneers at Amurridn Insti- 
tooshuns and the man who tampers with Re- 
vealed Religion ! I shan’t talk politics. I shan’t 
talk religion. But I will give our young friend 
a text to think about, and I will take one for 
myself. Even my friend Wyeth will perhaps 
allow me — and privately said, gentlemen, J. 
Bunker Wyeth, in spite of his agnostic playful- 
ness, is at heart as good a Christian as I am ...” 

“ Hear, hear ! ” and a guffaw came from Pul- 
liss 

. . . “ Will allow me to quote scripture. This 
is what I quote for the benefit of the pre- 
ceding speaker: the fathers have eaten sour grapes , 
and the teeth of the children are set on edge. Gen- 
tlemen, something sour has been eaten up yonder 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


81 


in Massachusetts; I knew it the moment our 
young friend intimated that this country is going 
to perdition. When you hear a man talk cor- 
ruption and preach reform, it’s always safe to 
ask him how he got on the wrong side of the 
market ! ” 

Everybody laughed, Eliot included ; and some- 
body bellowed out “ Transparent Brick ! ” send- 
ing all eyes to the Dioscuri, who had just seen 
the collapse of their wonderful trust — at safe 
distance. They went a bit red, but laughed with 
the rest. They could afford to laugh. 

“ But I have my own text, too,” Upps went 
on. “ I have this, — also a contrast of old and 
new. The bricks ,” — another laugh arose at this 
unintended reference to the Twins, — “ The bricks 
are fallen down , but we will build with hewn stones / 
the sycamores are cut down , but we will change them 
into cedars . That is my forestry, Mr. Eliot, and 
I invite you to try it. Just move, sir, into 
America and the twentieth century! I say to 
you, with our great American poetess, Ella 
Wheeler Wilcox, — 

“ Come live with me and be my love ! ” 

At this “more tenderer” phrase, and at the 
unctuous solicitation on Brother Upps’s classic 
visage, there was a fresh roar of laughter. 

“Well, my young friend is sour about the 


82 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


corporations. Do you know that the corpora- 
tions have made this great state what she is, 
that they support more widows and orphans 
by dividends, more labouring men by actual 
wages, than any combination of capital and 
industry which the world has ever seen ? You 
want to block them, stop them ; you call them 
immoral. What I call immoral is to see a man 
throw a whole trainload of prosperity into the 
ditch by piling up obstructions on the tracks of 
enterprise and progress ! That beats buying up 
a few abandoned Yankee farms ! 

“ Corporations are an American institution ; 
if you want to do away with them, you simply 
announce that you’ve set up business in the eigh- 
teenth century, ride in a stagecoach, and read 
by a tallow-dip. Who gave us steam, trolleys, 
electric lights, telephones ? — Corporations, — 
and politics. Come, let’s get down to bed-rock. 
You asked where the little chaps had gone from 
that schoolhouse. I’ll tell you. Into the live 
corporations. Look for ’em down in Boston, out 
in Indianapolis — you’ll discover ’em ; they’re 
not in the graveyard. Now we don’t find fault 
with you, sir ; it’s just the good-old-times cry, 
and young men like to raise it. When you get 
married, and I hope it will be soon, you’re sure 
to tell your wife that her biscuit can’t touch the 
kind that mother made ” 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


83 


A little movement on the part of Cards was 
of more import to the orator than all the uproari- 
ous approval of his claque of politicians. He 
went rapidly back to his argument. 

“Look at the real question. What is busi- 
ness ? What is politics ? Business, ever since 
Cain and Abel, is getting ahead of the other 
fellow. Once it was just man to man ; then in 
fairs, markets, cities. At last one man couldn’t 
handle his trade, and he got others to help him ; 
somebody has to regulate all this ; and if corpo- 
rations run business now, and if legislatures have 
to manage and control the corporation, I ask 
why not; and I ask you right here, too, what 
government is meant for, — is it to mark time ? 
I guess not. I guess not. — Morality, again, 
the degeneration in business morals ; I’ll take 
that up. It is better than ever in the history of 
the world, and best right here in America. My 
young friend is saying ‘ Oho,’ — or words to that 
effect. Well, let him take the Chicago wheat 
pit ; yes, gentlemen, the Chicago wheat pit. In 
old times, they praised a man as being one of a 
thousand when they called his word as good as 
his bond. In the Chicago wheat pit, every man’s 
word, yes, his mere nod, is as good as his bond ! 
And I’m told that out of a million transactions 
by word or nod hardly one case occurs where a 
man pleads the baby-act and shifts his contract ! 


84 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


And the Chicago wheat pit is not a Sunday- 
school, — no, sir! Think about that a bit. 

“ No. Let our young friend from the Bay 
State investigate a few facts instead of quoting 
William Shakespeare, and other authorities three 
or four centuries old, over a row of gravestones. 
Let him put his undoubted abilities into practi- 
cal use ; let him muster — he can — the brains 
to run a corporation and the nerve to go into 
practical politics. Then he can sign himself a 
twentieth-century American of America, — not 
an unidentified and unclaimed little political 
Lord Fauntleroy in velveteen panties and a male 
picture-hat ! ” 

Again, laughter ; and Eliot in it. He looked 
without resentment at Upps, thinking perhaps, 
just as I thought, that the worst and most fre- 
quent blunder we reformers perpetrate is to 
make out the politician of our day as an unre- 
deemed blackguard. This vulgar camp-meeting 
roarer has his humorous, common-sense parts, 
which come near to redeem the rest, and give 
him the national, exclusively occidental touch of 
a general brotherhood. Cards caught Eliot’s eye, 
and sent him one of his rare smiles. The guest 
replied in kind. Upps should have stopped with 
humour, the leveller ; he went back to logic, par- 
ent of all dissent, and to sarcasm and to person- 
alities. 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


85 


“Gentlemen, I’m tired of these sneerers and 
reformers who make a punching-bag of the poli- 
tician, just to improve their miserable wind. 
Where is the surest word, the unbroken promise, 
but in the politicians’ campaign or in the syndi- 
cate’s blind pool ?” — The Dioscuri studied Cards’s 
scheme of decoration on the ceiling, — “ Where 
is a nobler, sounder-hearted body of men than 
our politicians themselves, from Maine to Florida 
and from Sandy Hook clean over to the Golden 
Gate ? And who are these reformers ? Failures 
in business, loafers; men who are too good for 
America, and get their cuffs and collars made in 
London ; atheists, and socialists, and single-tax 
idiots, and free-love men, knaves when they are 
smart and fools when they mean well ! Did you 
ever see a* politician who didn’t listen to common 
sense and at least support churches if he didn’t 
go to them ? No. No. I tell you, as I said at 
first, what we need is more religion in the heart 
and more common sense in the head. Instead 
of that, these reformers get sentimental over 
business, where the head belongs, and are cold 
and calculating — rational, they call it — over 
religion where the heart belongs. My ideal 
American is all heart at home : wife ; babies ; 
magazines; cheque for a friend; religion, — well, 
what you will, but plenty of it, and stiff, honest 
stuff. At the office he’s all head, hard as nails, 


86 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


full of fight, downs the other fellow every time. 
The country’s full of these Americans, and they 
are making us the biggest thing on earth. Who 
wants to whine and whimper about our degener- 
ate America while that sort of man bumps you 
twenty times on every city block ? Yes, gentle- 
men, that’s my American ; that’s my winner ; 
and while I don’t drink, I’ll give you his health. 
And I’m not a man of malice, either. I’ll make 
it the health of my young friend there. Let him 
call himself down from that critical perch of his, 
let him join the corporations and get into poli- 
tics. Yes, my young friend, get into politics of 
the right sort, and I’ll be glad to eat a dinner in 
your house, ten years hence, when you are Presi- 
dent of the great Continental and Pacific Traffic 
Company with through connections to London 
by way of our Chinese Provinces ! That’s all 
coming! Get into the push! Don’t slash with 
your little Yankee jack-knife at Old Glory ! Get 
hold of the rope and hoist the flag of our Union 
over the whole show ! That is my advice ; that 
is the tip ; that’s my address, — and I am al- 
ways at home. That’s J. Wesley Upps . . . and 
I thank you, gentlemen, for your kind attention. 
Mr. Cards, sir, I thank you.” 


VII 


He stopped suddenly, like a tropical storm, 
shedding his holy enthusiasm as if it were a 
cloak : “ Lie there, lord-chancellor.” He looked 
keenly about him as he sat down, not sure that 
for his audience at the head of the table he had 
not shrieked a note or more too high, using argu- 
ments mainly fitted for the stolid Dutch farmers 
whose cows and cabbage patches he was wont to 
represent as safe only under the holy banner of 
the tariff as borne aloft by the peerless leader 
Ganewood. He smiled over to that gentleman’s 
place, but in vain. Ganewood had moved in his 
mysterious way first to Cards, for whisper and 
nod, then to Eliot himself. To the young man, 
as thunders of applause rose from politicians near 
Upps, the wily leader addressed a few pleasant 
words. “ It’s all right,” he said in his oracular 
style. “ I’m older than you are ; and you’ll find 
that in main points great majorities are right. 
Don’t be sarcastic. Those men” — he pointed 
in the direction of Cards — “ back me up, and 
they are neither hypocrites nor rascals. Don’t 
87 


88 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


believe the newspapers. As for Upps, never 
mind his manner, but think over his argument ; 
be fair, — be fair. You are a good speaker, and 
I’d like to have you in with us ; come and see 
me one of these days. — I’m off. Good night.” 
And Ganewood was gone. 

Trimalchio’s dinner was fairly at an end; and it 
actually concluded, in accordance with precedent, 
by a toast to the health of the host, vigorously 
proposed by Harden Croudley, whose speeches 
are always in demand, and read, however extem- 
poraneous, like a book. “ What,” he queried in 
his heavy voice, “ what was the ideal gentleman 
of chivalry a thousand years ago ? A man who 
fought right, prayed right, loved right. Well, 
that is still the ideal gentleman to-day. But he 
leads no crusade, he heads no host of Christian 
warriors to rescue the holy tomb from infidels ; 
he leads industry, capital, enterprise in the cru- 
sade for prosperity and national success. He 
prays ignorantly to no random saints; but he 
stands for sacred as for civic ideals against the 
assaults of nihilism, scepticism, and anarchy. He 
wears the glove of no frail, laughing dame ; but 
he upholds the beauty and sanctity of woman- 
hood in her God-given sphere of home. My fel- 
low-guests ! Three centuries hence, history will 
record the American capitalist, the man who pro- 
moted vast enterprises, combined scattered in- 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


89 


dustries, created new conditions of business, as 
typical and ideal gentleman of his day. That 
type is now making, — and is made. It is im- 
personated before your eyes ”... at his gesture, 
the whole assembly rose like an exhalation, the 
judge exhaling with some difficulty . . . “ in your 
host, whether you take him in this gracious 
act of hospitality, or as founder and ruler of that 
great House to which the eyes of finance turn, as 
the eyes of servants turn to their masters, from 
every quarter of the world. Fill, my friends. 
We drink to the Twentieth-century Gentleman. 
We drink to the House of Cards ! . . . ” 

Uproar, applause, the banker’s brief word of 
thanks : and all was done. The guests departed 
each after his kind, — Pulliss thrusting a brace 
of fat cigars into his pocket and holding a third 
in his mouth to light in the outer hall. De Ligny 
paid elaborate compliment to Eliot, grasping his 
hand, and apologizing for that “ yokel of a par- 
son. Ganewood is another proposition ; I don’t 

like him, but perhaps he is necessary Come and 

see me ! I have some books, and I can give you 

a fair cigar ! — Good-bye, my dear Eliot ” 

I couldn’t make out the boy’s expression. I 
had feared a row, an outburst; but the feast 
had come to its decorous end. Malstrem stood 
near us, his cold, prominent eyes glancing about 
the room ; he wanted to besom the mob off into 


90 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


space and have a quarter-hour with Cards about 
some bonds, a syndicate, a coalition. Suddenly 
he came up to Eliot, and held out his hand. 

“ You’re a sportsman, sir, and you ride straight. 
— Has Cards converted you by this dinner ? Have 
you now got your perspective ? See Upps over 
there — I admit that the animal has my pass in 
his pocket — with the sanctimonious person, do 
you? Well, they are making a dicker about the 
hospital appropriation. Upps will steer it. It 
will be thirty thousand dollars, — and the hos- 
pital will get just half. And Pulliss, yonder, — 
with those men? Frankly put, they belong in 
jail. They are a little anxious about some of the 
papers which Pulliss drew up ; but Pulliss is 
capable ; they won’t have to pay ; he won’t go 
to jail ; and the stockholders won’t even get into 
court. Eh ? And you talk of ‘ corporations ’ ; 
those aren’t corporations, they’re conspiracies. 
You needn’t touch them, — you couldn’t. Cards 
wouldn’t touch ’em. And are you going to 
throw those beggars into one mess with Cards 
and me ? Did our sort of corporation ever fail 
to protect its stockholders ? ” 

“ Do you undertake personally, socially, in 
business, by civic action, to punish those men ? ” 

“ How do it ? ” 

“ Why do you break bread with them ? Sit on 
boards with them ? Lend them money ? And 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


91 


more. ‘ Have you not beadles in your town, 
and things called whips ’ — or at least the 
equivalent ? ” 

Malstrem frowned. “ No,” he said slowly, and 
after a good pause, “ No. Not for them. — I pro- 
tect my stockholders.” 

“ By . . . another kind of conspiracy ? ” 

Malstrem shook his head. “Ride on,” — he 
smiled as he returned to his figure, — “ and ride 
straight ; but don’t ride into a swamp, — or over 
a precipice. For whose benefit ? Not for yours, 
at least ; and the Quintus Curtius act doesn’t 
go nowadays. Sometime, perhaps, things will 
brighten up. Don’t play Don Quixote, anyway. 
We are all glad to see you in these parts, Mr. 
Eliot, — and good night.” 

Neither before nor since did Malstrem ever 
take such interest in a human being as to give 
him even this roundabout advice. It showed 
what Eliot had done for himself, whatever the 
dinner and the guests and the speeches had done 
for the purposes of Cards in their impression 
upon the boy. Cards looked carefully at him. 
“ Don’t try to sum it up, Eliot,” he said ; “ it’s 
too miscellaneous. — Tuesday night, then ? — 
Good. And good-bye, John. Good-bye to both 
of you, and thank you for holding up my hands ! 
— Now, Malstrem.” 

Eliot went off. “ I think he’ll understand, 


92 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


Linsey,” I said in a whisper, including Malstrem 
in the confidence. The railroad man shook his 
head. “ I’ve been studying him. Close thing, — 
and wish you success : but my bet is the other 
way.” 


VIII 


My horses took us home, as horses of mine 
always do, in sharpest trot ; within a few min- 
utes Eliot and I, wide-awake as a pair of hawks, 
were seated by a big wood-fire in my library, 
ready to talk it all over with a supplementary 
smoke. I know a hoary old sinner who says the 
best smoke is before breakfast. He is a degen- 
erate, a pervert. The best smoke is the pipe after 
a smoke. 

“ I don’t feel like bed,” said Eliot. 

“ Nor I. What mischief can we invent to keep 
us going till dawn ? ” It was my jocose way ; 
but the young fellow took me up. 

“ Major,” he said, « I am awfully keen to know 
this. You’re sixty years and better ; I am five 
and twenty, — you’re wise, and I’m largely fool. 
But tell me straight. Shall I take Malstrem’s 
advice ? Shall I believe Ganewood about yes- 
terday and to-day ? Were those men of the old 
war, as far as their times would permit, the same 
breed as we have now ? You knew them all. . . . 

I’m thinking, you know, of my uncle ” 

93 


94 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


“ Since you’ve been here with me, boy, I have 
thought of little else. What I know of your 
uncle ! — Why, can it be possible that he is not 
a vivid, actual memory . . . but of course not ! 
Poor fool that I am ! And your father hardly 

remembered him either Here you have come 

to Pennsylvania and to me, to learn about your 
own Massachusetts namesake! By Jove, you 
shall know all I know.” 

“ And Cards, too . . . and Mrs. Cards. Why, 
Major, you jumped ! ” 

“Did I? — Well, well! — See here, boy, the 
night is young, or at least, the morning is ; and 
I’ll start my story on the spot. Are you awake 
enough to listen ? ” 

“ Ho ! ” 

“ Well ” I shifted uneasily in my chair, 

then rose and walked over to my old-fashioned 
secretary, where a certain drawer seemed to open 
of its own accord ; I took out a bundle of fools- 
cap and turned sternly upon Eliot. 

“Well, Major ! ” 

“Do you mind,” I faltered, “if I read a 
little?” 

“ What? Not another historical novel, I hope ! 
Oh, Major Heigh ! ” 

“ No, sir,” I said firmly, “ it’s no novel. It is 
history. It is just my ‘Recollections,’ — you 
know.” 


THE HOUSE TRIUMPHANT 


95 


“ Major, Major!” 

“ I have given it,” I went on deliberately, “ a 
slight literary flavour, and perhaps added a bit of 
sentiment here and there. Why not? Think of 
trash like . . .” 

“ Well, by Jove ! 99 

“ I don’t know what you mean by that. 
Haven’t I rights?” 

“ Undoubtedly. Any poetry ? ” 

“ Certainly not ! ” 

“Well, Major, if you will let me have a bit 
more of that tobacco, and if I may put this log 
on the fire ... So ! Now, then, sir, I shall be 
your first admirer in the long list.” 

“You don’t think I’d publish it? — Well, as 
you say, there is worse trash in print, — or as 
you will say, I hope. You see, it’s like this. I 
lived in times which are very fast disappearing 
into a haze highly suitable for romance but more 
and more unfavourable to history. I want to 
tell about persons whom history itself can never 
reach, but who made the very stuff which history 
tries so hard to preserve ; they were in every 
way worth while, those persons. The problem 
is how I can tell of them. It is all true, this 
main narrative ; you will detect one or two 
pages where incidental fiction had to come in, 
— for it was not in my power to be everywhere, 
you know ” 


96 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 

“ Certainly not.” 

“ Shall I, then?.. ” 

“ Major, I am yours until the sleep of death ! ” 
— So I read it to him — my manuscript. 


\ 


II 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


4 


I 


My name is John Heigh, at your good pleasure ; 
and this land which you see is mine, bought from 
the red Indians by my ancestor who came over 
with William the peaceful Conqueror : six hun- 
dred acres in my father’s day, and sixteen hun- 
dred a century ago Six hundred now, did 

you ask ? No, my young friend. I have had 
relatives, — and have them. 

About the middle fifties, when my poor recol- 
lections begin, there was a kind of splendour over 
the house of Heigh not to be explained by all 
these acres, and the harvests thereof, however 
bountiful. In the city, not very far from the 
Delaware front, a dingy sign marked an equally 
dingy doorway ; within, however, my mother’s 
people had ruled almost time out of mind over 
swift ships and the trade with China ; and thence 
came that luxury which my ancestral acres never 
could have yielded, — the greenhouses, the gar- 
dens, all the bewildering array of rare plants 
and trees whose names we pronounced in such 
adventurous fashion, the stables, the great stone 
mansion, and even our library itself, fairly stocked 
99 


L.ofC. 


100 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


for the meridian of Philadelphia, and — believe 
me — actually put to use : in a word, the vast 
comfort of our life in those days before the war. 
Fifty years ago, the times of my idyll ; and they 
belong for modern youth almost with cocked 
hats and knee-breeches. Did you ever see any 
man, off the stage, take snuff and pass about 
his box and smile upon his neighbour in a kind 
of community of titillation ? Never, you say ; 
and I have seen the deed, now merely histrionic, 
done as a daily and unconsidered act. They 
make snuff even yet, I am told, and sell it, — in 
heaven’s name, to whom ? I think it must be 
exported as ghostly freight to the Fortunate Isles, 
whither I too shall soon take ship ; where I shall 
meet once more the deliberate and contemplative 
breed who knew how urbanity itself went out 
of date when folk ceased to interpose the pinch, 
the smile, the harmless shock, between a query 
and its courteous retort ; and where, best of all, 
I shall see the heroes whom I knew. One of 
these heroes I am to describe for you ; and at 
first, I fear, you will not think him a hero. 

Yes, it was a cabined and formal but happy 
life. Children held their tongues while elders 
talked; and conversation ran full measure, — 
not this latter-day hint and laugh and innuendo. 
Poetry, I remember, was quoted freely ; and a 
morsel of the Night Thoughts or The TasJc, the 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


101 


more familiar the better, never came amiss. 
Even jocosities ran to sentiment and quotation. 
I can still see our doctor, an otiose individual, 
rallying my gaunt and solemn cousin of three- 
and-twenty about his loves. — “ And how is the 
fair widow ? ” — A deprecating gesture, but not 
without sign of intense enjoyment ; then a slow 
wagging of the head. And the doctor : “ No, 
no? — Ah! Fickle youth! Well, shadows we 
are and shadows we pursue.” — All that was 
in the day’s work fifty years ago. — During 
an afternoon call, cake and “sangaree” were 
passed about : a beverage which my Uncle 
Charles, who had seen foreign parts and took 
unkindly to such potations, informed me was 
named from a corruption of the French expletive 
venfrre-saint-gris. — We were pious. Clergymen 
had a bolder, easier way of bustling about, and 
took far more authority than they take now over 
our minor morals. The country was governed 
by representatives of the people duly elected at 
the polls, — not at a conference of the capitalist 
and the boss. We hammered our leather for 
shoes ; we seasoned our timber for houses ; and 
the men and reputations that we made were 
built to outlast doomsday. We had no foot-ball, 
but we had manly games enow, and we shouted 
at them in a good Christian way, — not with this 
college “yell” which seems to be crossed of a 


102 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


war-whoop and the doxology. Indeed, indeed, 
sweet friends, where are the sports of our youth ? 
Marbles are gone ; tops are in a silent but sure 
decline ; kites, — ah me, no more, no more ! And 
we were a sturdy folk. I suppose there were 
weaklings enough fifty years ago ; but trust 
companies had not been formed to immortalize 
this noisome breed of the swell club. Villains, 
too, there were, I make no doubt, anthropophagi 
whose heads did grow between their shoulders, 
and so thrust out the heart bodily and sent the 
soul into ignoble neighbourhood ; I remember 
none of them, however, except the Irish boys 
who used to throw stones at me as I went to 
school. Adventure, wonder, thrills of discovery, 
and yearning to follow a setting sun, — plenty 
of all this ; for the great West was close to us, 
and our maps had land upon them set down 
as untrodden and unknown. Trappers still 
came along now and then, and, oftener, men 
from half-wild Ohio with horses to sell us ; 
my grandmother told me of Indians she had 
seen at our very doors, of women pointed out 
to her in her youth who had held house and 
shielded children against bad redskins, and — it 
was then that the wood-fire blazed best just 
before our old-fashioned hour for supper — of 
captivity and torture in the wigwams, cold, hun- 
ger, noble deaths : I touched the old breed of 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


103 


our land, touching her soft but withered fingers, 
as her lips moved with remembered accents of 
the iron age.... We had few millionaires, — a 
scattered, lonely sort ; no leisure class save in nu- 
cleus as retired merchants who despised the idler ; 
and nearly every young man went to work. 

Who were we here ? — My father, an easy, 
emancipated Quaker, keeping no « testimonies,” 
but a firm believer in the philosophy of his reli- 
gion ; he had, too, the quiet manner, the pride 
of an old house ; travelled he was and well read, 
a prop of philanthropy, a fine chairman : he 
looked his man steadily in the face and his word 
passed for fine gold. My mother, — but I think 
I will not write about her ; though I can tell of 
her roses, the roses that found their way to so 
many sick folk. And it was only among her rose- 
bushes that she was ever known to sing ; and my 
father, coming along the garden walk between 
the high box-borders, would stop and listen, and 
stoop his head. Tommy Moore forgotten and no 
good at all, do you tell me, Gigadibs ? Very well ; 
very well ; I hear you : don’t roar at me so. 
Thank you, no, Gigadibs, I’ll not subscribe to 
your “ Good Music Society.” A young woman 
of these parts was craftier than you, Gigadibs. 
the other day at her house when I was waiting 
for her mother to come down. . . . She went to 
the piano, and tinkled softly, and then sang 


104 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


Tommy Moore’s Bendemeer , which I had sup- 
posed, with you, to be as dead as good man- 
ners. I shut my eyes ; and I heard that soft, 
small voice out in our old garden again 

And I thought , are the nightingales singing there yet , 

Are the roses still bright by the calm Bendemeer ? 

Only they were wood-robins. And then my 
Uncle Charles, half-brother to my father, and 
senior by ten years ; no Quaker he, but a retired 
officer of the regular army. He had put a bullet, 
or what novelists call a bit of cold steel, into 
somebody over in Paris, or Brussels, because of a 
sneer at Quakers and cowards; the thing was 
kept marvellously quiet in the family, but was 
clearly not a matter of unmixed shame. Para- 
lyzed slightly now, and pushed about in a wheel- 
chair by his old servant, he was of course my 
hero, my boast, my exemplar ; but were he alive 
a few years ago and had asked for a commission 
in the Spanish War, even in the best of his health 
and years, he would never have had a chance. 
He was too simple, too kindly, too much of a 
soldier. . . . There was something keen and 
American about him, to be sure, so that I could 
not use him to fill Uncle Toby’s literary outline 
for me in flesh and blood ; but he would have 
hewed to the line with Captain Shandy himself 
for honesty and kindness of heart. Sound and 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


105 


seasoned men of war inclined that way ; they 
loved shy little maids and straightforward, 
bungling boys — if ever boy habitually bungled 
things, I did — and all grown-up folk who are 
beset by trouble, and yet keep a cheery fortitude 
under stress of unkind fate. My father was an 
ardent man of peace, and made me peruse that 
unconvincing product of Quaker genius, the 
Essays of Jonathan Dymond ; yet it was 
wonderful how the brothers could discuss all 
manner of problems as ticklish as you please, in 
perfect amity, — they two, and Judge Havens, 
our neighbour, who fairly worshipped the memory 
of Bonaparte and had gathered a whole library 
on the Corsican alone. Ah, the judge ! Could 
I see him for only one brief month upon the 
bench to-day ! . . . His speeches were full of 
Burke and Cicero and old-school erudition. I 
still read with delight his address to the gradu- 
ating class at Princeton ; what periods, what 
felicitous and classic phrase ! His law was 
sound ; his antiquarian tastes were as keen as his 
learning, as catholic as his interests in things of 
the day. But that style ! Whether he wrote to 
the journals, or made his paper about the old Penn 
milestones, it was always on high levels and in 
the manner of The Letter to a Noble Lord. 
Now not a word is remembered of his orations, 
his letters, his papers ; his law is out of date, — 


106 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


oh, but out of date ! — and his History of our own 
County is gathering dust on all the few shelves, 
save one, where it may still chance to lie. — It 
speaks very nobly of the Heighs. — Once the 
judge found a corporation remotely involved in a 
case that came before him ; and incontinently he 
gave all the stock of it that he owned, — fat, 
dividend-paying stock it was, and the judge 
was not wealthy, — to a Blind Asylum. Some- 
body mentioned this eccentric deed the other 
day in City Council ; and there was laughter 
for full five minutes. One of these dull winters 
I shall compile from similar eccentricities which 
I remember, a Jest-Book for Legislators and 
Judges. 

Wake up, Eliot, — I am coming to the young 
woman ! — But Eliot protests he was listening 
keenly. 

“ Ik Marvel’s Reveries of a Bachelor used to be 
a favourite book, I think, Major ? ” he asks slily. 

I growl a bit, and go on. 

There was Miss Patty, another neighbour, of 
very blue blood and an income in related tints ; 
but she carried her economies like a crown. She 
never spake a harsh word to mortal soul ; and 
she never let man or woman whom she held to 
be out of her order cross by so much as an inch 
that sacred line. And Miss Patty had a sister, 
who was just that : Miss Patty’s sister ; but at 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


107 


certain revolutions of our suburban year, there 
came to visit these, her great-aunts, one who was 
very much more than just their great-niece, a 
young person — Eliot ! — of sixteen summers, — 
and she had taken full toll of sweet and charm 
and fragrance from them all, — to whom I devoted 
the ardours of an almost hopeless love. She bore 

the startling name of Kriemhild Kriemhild, 

— romantic as it sounds, it is of German origin, 
I believe, and is hereditary in her family, — and 
the reassuring surname of West. I had never 
told my passion to her explicitly ; but I begged 
her to read me the marriage service as it stood 
in her prayer-book, and then, carefully repeating 
the simple Quaker form, I asked, with a tremu- 
lous assumption of interest purely academic, 
which she preferred. There was no “ obey ” in 
the latter, I pointed out. “ Of course not,” she 
said with great spirit ; and I learned for the first 
time what powers of repartee lurk in our Phila- 
delphia woman of society. We argued the point 
at some length, finally agreeing that it is best to 
be married as Quakers and to be buried as Epis- 
copalians. Could I not promise her, by the way, 
to join the church ? — I hung in the wind ; and 
then she gave me her own prayer-book, putting 
my name below hers. I wrote “ to ” between, 
added the date with an excoriating, underlining 
stroke ; took one wild gaze at her face, all saint 


108 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


in its heavenly tenderness for my soul ; thanked 
her in an agony of gratitude ; and went home to 

make my last will and testament She had 

given me a late violet ; I shut it in the book 
at the Service for the Dead. Would it be better 
for her or for me to attend the other’s funeral ? 
— I have never been so happy in my life. My 
felicity endured for one short summer month of 
my most immemorial year ; and that month 
brought surprise to my comrades by reason of 
a strange austerity in my morals, my indiffer- 
ence to firearms on our Glorious Fourth, and my 
disdain of rural beauty at the Sunday-school 
picnics. Indeed, my appreciation of poetry 
dates from this passionate month ; and I recol- 
lect that I ventured to excerpt and slightly to 
change a stanza of Burns, copying it on my best 
paper with a gilt edge and sending it to her 
unsigned : — 

Talk not to me of Savages 
From Afric’s burning sun, 

Ho savage e’er could rend my heart 
As, Kkiemhild, thou hast done ! 

What would a new summer bring me ? Men 
have plighted their manly troth at scant eighteen. 
. . . But before that new summer came, felicity 
fled from my heart. Between her and me there 
fell the shadow of another boy ; a boy from 
Boston. . . . 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


109 


— I observe you are listening now, sir. Good. 
And watch the lights. They ought to burn low, 
for a ghost is entering. Do you happen to know, 
Eliot, how the first joke came to be made ? I 
can tell you. Some old anthropoid snapped his 
eyes to keep back the tears, and the bystanders 
laughed ; they all thought he was winking. And 
you notice how humorous I have made my style, 
and cynical, and smart ? Eh ? Well, I go on. 

Boston and Philadelphia, in those days before 
the war, seemed as mutually remote as Rome 
and Pontus. He came to us with the mystery 
of your modern continental nobleman, this boy ; 
and he brought to me a depression, a presenti- 
ment that my game was spoiled, descending like 
a careless conqueror amid our peaceful fields. 
Miss Patty, you see, had a distant kinsman of 
New England birth, one Dighton Perry, a god- 
less but genial Unitarian who settled in these 
parts after a successful career as cotton-broker ; 
the boy was his sister’s son. Youthful, foreign, 
the visitor still seemed at ease in any Zion. He 
wore clothes of a fine, liberal cut ; he had an 
audacity of look and gesture which to this day 
I cannot help associating with Boston Common 
and the east wind, although I have noted it in 

Eton boys strolling about Windsor He 

laughed now and then just like a music-box ; 
and when impressed with anything, went Huh ! 


110 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


with a long and thoughtful outlet of breath. 
When he said “ why,” — and boys, even Boston 
boys, used that word constantly, — it was aspi- 
rated sharply, clear, crisp, sounding like the 
stroke of an axe heard on a frosty morning from 
the hillside; my own “why,” innocent of any 
aspirate, dragged like a ploughshare through 
rich but heavy soil. The Heighs were writ 
large in our Country History, yes ; and the 
maternal shipping interests were responsible for 
Chinese idols and big ivory chessmen and Malay 
creeses, pride of my young heart as I showed 
them to occidental guests ; but this fellow seemed 
fairly compassed about with ancestors who fired 
at the whites of British eyes on Bunker Hill, or 
counted Pine-Tree Shillings, or even cut its cross 
out of the haughty banner of St. George. He 
owned a sail-boat “ down at Nahant ” ; I could not 
say Nahant after he had once said it ; Nahant 
stuck in my throat. I referred to it as “ that 
place.” To this day I am a mere fool at the 
word. He had been abroad, too, — had seen 
London and Paris, — “ Pariss.” He meant 
Parus, of course. His uncle, Dighton Perry, 
called him Rollo ; but his actual name was 
Waltham Eliot ; it is the kind of name, you 
mark, that a girl in solitude writes down with a 
“ Mrs.” in front of it. Now I had certain remote 
ancestors named Highbury, and one day, dis- 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


111 


covering the fact, I asked my father and mother, 
not without some asperity of tone, why, then, 
they had not named me Highbury, — Highbury 
Heigh. — “We thought,” said my sire, pleasantly, 
“ of Seth.” — I left the room. 

A terrible dandy, this fellow, with long words 
in his talk that I fancy were unusual even with 
the youth of Boston ; he had, nevertheless, quali- 
ties which put out of the question any idea of 
treating him as a negligible and kickable 
mamma’s-boy. He knew nothing of horses ; but 
when I tried him with a nasty colt we had, he 
took three falls, set his teeth, — they had just 
escaped disaster on a near stone, — and refused 
scornfully my now profuse and anxious advice 
that he should retire on a certificate of pluck. 
The colt surrendered. “ I’ll not be bullied by 
anything,” he said grimly, “man or beast.” — 
“ No, by gosh ! ” said I, classically, and shook 
hands with him. 

Of course he cut me out with Kriemhild West ; 
and she deserted me, as she had come to me, by 
that dear ecclesiastical route trodden of woman 
everywhere in every time. We all knew in those 
days what happened to an Unitarian when he 
died ; and here w T as a fine brand to be plucked 
from the burning. A Sunday or so after his 
arrival, Waltham Eliot was carried off to church 
by Kriemhild and her aunts ; and I happen to 


112 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


have accurate information about a curious scene 
which occurred there, and which I like to re- 
member now while I am setting down memorials 
of my friend’s cocky and Bostonically pompous 
youth. On the drive to church he was quite the 
society fledgling, gazing around with a smile or 
else a remark, full of his broad a , at rusticities 
of folk afoot. He was good enough to approve 
the church itself ; wrapped in ivy and set against 
a background of woods, with a great weeping 
willow by the door, it gave him a lead for archi- 
tectural comment and European reminiscence 
politely addressed to the aunts. It made Kriem- 
hild feel very young. His correct but unenthusi- 
astic entry of the sacred building was fairly 
awesome to her ; and he sat down in the pew by 
his fair hostess with a patient urbanity as of one 
whom all this pious pother should not unduly 
bore. She was afraid to look at him, mindful 
of provocative bonnets and eccentric worshippers 
on every hand ; but it was not so long before she 
was forced to look at him, and the result was a 
surprise. It was in the chanting of the Te Deum , 
where a certain sweet and sympathetic voice was 
left to bear alone those words about the Incarna- 
tion . . . When thou tooJcest upon thee to deliver man 
thou didst humble thyself to be born of a virgin. . . . 
Mystery and remoteness of the fact disappeared 
at touch of so soft a voice and yielded to the 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


113 


deeper mystery that followed. When thou hadst 
overcome the sharpness of death. . . . Master Wal- 
tham Eliot, of Boston, was not the first gentle- 
man of pronounced rationalistic convictions 
through whose soul this great traditional majesty 
of emotion has made its way as with flame. He 
told me once that all the history and romance 
he had ever read seemed to take shape before his 
eyes ; here, a great throng of martyrs who had 
followed this master through the sharpness of 
death, and there, an army of knights, crusaders, 
gentlemen, with flashing swords . . . Christo et 

Ecclesiae The one thing in this world that 

a brave man asks is something in which he can 
believe and for which he can fight. . . . The 
prayer-book, which the boy and the girl were 
holding between them, shook. Was he laughing 
at this rustic performance? She glanced shily 
at his face. It was flushed to the hair, and his 
gray eyes were wet with tears. 

“That was because you liked our church, 
wasn’t it ? ” ran her whispered comment on the 
incident as they drove home and her aunt was 
talking to the coachman. 

“Well, no, — not exactly. Your service is 
fine. But don’t you know, now and then, when 
you read some kinds of poetry, or history, and 
when you really have to fight, — finish, you know, 
— or, or . . . you know ? ” 


114 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


Kriemhild didn’t know, but was sure she 
would know before long; so she nodded her 
head in approbation, and Eliot, sensible of 
huddled English and unnecessary confidences, 
resumed his old manner. “ Ah,” he said airily, 
“ who is the creature in white ? . . 

“ Boy,” I said, shoving my manuscript aside and 
my spectacles up into my hair, “ do women ever 
know ? ” 

“ Tut, tut, Major Heigh ! But see here, my 
uncle surely wasn’t like that ? ” 

“Yes, he was like that,” I roared, for this was 
an imputation both on my own generation, or 
else my historical accuracy, and on my artistic 
literary skill ; “ he was just like that, confound 
you ! And because he was like that, and had 
these quixotic ways, and was chock-full of sen- 
timent, just so we were a sound, good America, 
north and south, and fought our great war for 
ideas . . . and left the country to be ruined by 
money-sharps who worship nothing but smart- 
ness and success, and don’t believe in goodness 

or ideals or God or love ” 

“Major, — now, Major! And is this your 
comment on to-night’s dinner as well as your 
advice on Tuesday’s interview ? ” 

“ Pardon me, my boy. I’ll read on. But your 
uncle was like that.” 

“ I want to hear more of him.” 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


115 


I pulled down my spectacles and read. 

The Boston boy and I were finding each other 
at a prodigious rate. He was no mere city “ soft,” 
and I grew accustomed to his big words. I, too, 
was not the yokel of the West that he had feared 
to find me. In fact, my home, my dignified sire, 
my gentle and gracious mother, our life of quiet 
content, our horses, our broad estate, reminded 
this cosmopolitan of the landed gentry in Great 
Britain. « I’m a democrat, Heigh,” he informed 
me ; “ yes, by Jove ! But do you know, it’s great 
to have the tenants and servants and labourers 
touch their hats to you as they do over there. 
You’d be a squire. Well, one day you’ll own 
all this.” He glanced at the harvest fields yel- 
low beyond the greensward of our lawn. I was 
moved to confidences, translating rapidly into 
the vernacular my dreams of a remote owner- 
ship, giving the future Mrs. Heigh, though without 
hint of her identity, a most conspicuous place. 

“Ah,” said Eliot, glancing at me and then 

away into space. “ Marriage ! H’m Lottery, 

Heigh, infernal lottery ! ” 

We exchanged a few unnecessarily cordial 
compliments, and recollected for each a pressing 
engagement at home. We parted with quite 
superfluous warmth, and made eager tryst for 
the next morning. There are times when a 
man must be alone. 


116 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


For me the great revulsion of feeling came 
that night. I sacrificed newborn friendship on 
the altar of a fearful jealousy. To the roar of 
a thunderstorm, with the damp wind keen in 
my fluttering nightrobe and playing about my 
bare legs, I stood at the open window, heedless 
of danger, and knew for the first time in my 
life tho old Homeric truth that our business on 
earth ic to enact hell. Heaven itself set the scene 
for me. Crash went a tree in our garden ! “ Ha ! ” 
I said, with an irresolute jump, open to two in- 
terpretations. — “ He does not know the bulldog 
in us Heighs,” I muttered. “ And yet I love him. 
And she does not know me, — tender and true 
that I am. 0 Jonathan, my brother ! And O 
Kriemhild ! ” The rain began to pour in, and 
I went to bed. Next morning our wet, glitter- 
ing, sun-flooded neighbourhood was a haunt of 
ancient peace, and Eliot came in for his dish of 
late strawberries and cream. We went down 
and examined the shattered tree. “Well,” he 
said, looking at me keenly but kindly, “there 
are plenty more trees in the world.” “There 
are,” said I. Just after breakfast, you know, 
is man’s hour, and friendship rises superior to 
love, with the “ need of a world of men.” A few 
days more, however, and that conceited, silly 
girl made us two the firmest of friends, heed- 
less what planet ruled. She snubbed us both, 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


117 


impartially, directly, disgustingly. For her own 
reasons, she took a distant anct even contemptu- 
ous attitude toward us, telling us plainly we 
were mere boys ; she was evidently mortifying 
the flesh, in obedience to the advice of the 
bishop at her confirmation, for she read a book 
about sisterhoods, talked of foreign missions, 
adored clergymen and advocated celibacy for 
them, and refused candy at all hours. We 
called it “ candy ” then ; and I call it so yet. 
She quoted that bishop incessantly ; he was 
her ideal of the complete man ; and oh, could 
she but live out her short but devoted life 
at his feet ! So she would murmur and bleat in 
a real girl’s voice, with her wide-opened eyes 
fixed on a spot about two feet above our heads. 
There was no reasoning with her. When we 
referred to other spheres of activity and other 
ideals of manhood, she smiled gently and said 
she knew that boys always wished to be either 
a conductor on a street-car or a trapper in the 
far West. This pained Eliot to the quick ; and 
it was now his turn to feel young in a kind of 
im potency of exasperation which tried his 
urbanity almost beyond its strength. She 
smiled again, to see the shaft well home; ad- 
dressed me Johnny Heigh, as if I played with 
a pet lamb ; bowed carelessly to Eliot ; and 
excused herself, — we were calling at the house 


118 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


one fine summer morning, with vague proposi- 
tions for a picnic in the afternoon, — excused 
herself, because “some gentlemen are coming 
to dinner, and my aunts need my help. Ser- 
vants, you know,” she added, “ are the plague in 
life for us women. — Well, good-bye, — boys.” — 
Boys ! Women ! — We walked away, two hearts 
with but a single beat, fused in a common and 
outraged manhood. I was a youth of concrete, 
not to say crude ideas ; and I suggested that we 
should concentrate our attack upon this anae- 
mic piosity of the girl by calling the bishop 
evil and jocose names in our demoiselle’s own 
white teeth. Eliot was not averse from some 
scheme of the sort; but our plan broke down 
when it came to a test, partly in view of Kriem- 
hild’s austerity, and partly from a want of agree- 
ment which one of us should begin. We saw 
little of her for a while, betaking ourselves to 
manly practices. Long walks were made dur- 
ing a cool fortnight which came as blessed 
interval in our fierce Pennsylvania heats ; and 
as I was strong in farming lore, though mainly 
by the higher criticism, I could explain many 
agricultural processes and situations to our guest. 
He asked me intelligent questions about the rota- 
tion of crops, spoke with approval of the com- 
fort to be found in rural life, and puzzled me 
with these new proclivities until I drew his 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


119 


darker purpose from him. He was half minded, 
he said, to renounce the dull routine of law, seek 
an available farm, and give himself up to the 
charms of quiet and meditation, “like Horace, 
you know,” he instanced, “or like Mr. Emerson 
at Concord.” — Emerson ? “ But,” I said, “ Emer- 
son is an infidel ! ” 

“ Infidel your grandmother ! ” cried Eliot, in 
high dudgeon and quite in the dialect which I 
habitually employed. Then, swiftly mindful of 
the havoc which theological prejudices had 
wrought in our relations to the other sex, he 
swiftly took refuge in reminiscence and a cour- 
teous plea for toleration. “ Of course, they say 
things about him here because he is an Unitarian. 
But, Heigh, — he is a minister ! ” 

“ Is he ? I didn’t know that. And my 
father says you may read him, ‘ with cau- 
tion,’ when you’re grown up. Yes, father reads 
him.” 

“Your father,” said Eliot, with deliberate 
emphasis, “ is a gentleman.” — He seemed to 
hold me out a patent of nobility. — “ And as for 
your Uncle Charles ! Heigh, didn’t he meet the 
Duke of Wellington over there ? ” 

“ Dined with him,” I answered as casually as 
I could. 

“ Ah, well, you see,” continued Eliot, sagely, 
and yet kindly, as if he himself had brought 


120 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


about the invitation. — “ Look here, Heigh, — it 
is all so about that duel ? ” 

“ Of course it is, only I’ll get a licking — almost 
— if you peach.” 

“Not I. — But he did pink the frog-eating 
coward, eh ? Ha ! — Look here, Heigh ! ” He 
spoke very solemnly, and glanced about us with a 
frown of interrogation for possible eaves-droppers. 
All was serene. We stood in the shade of an 
apple tree that overhung the road ; a cool breeze 
played above us, and a bird chirped from the 
bough. Eliot came close to me. “ Heigh, there 
are too few gentlemen in this country ! I don’t 
mean just manners. I don’t mean education : 
look at Harvard College ! ” His bearing at this 
word had the effect of a Roman Catholic crossing 
himself. “No, sir. I mean gentlemen like your 
Uncle Charles, who know what honour means. 
I am a puritan, sir. But the South is right in 
demanding that a gentleman shall defend his 
honour. Heigh, don’t laugh. I have made a 
vow. I take no insult from an equal, without its 
consequences. This is between you and me. It 
may sound like bragging, sir, — but it’s not. No, 
sir, — if a man insults me one of these days, and 
is in my class, he fights me, — fights me. Fists ? 
No , sir. Swords ! ” — He paced on. 

It was tremendous. I felt that the Heigh 
humour, which had showed signs of life, must be 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


121 


stifled at any cost ; and I walked beside him as 
grave as he was himself. Presently he stopped 
again. 

“ Heigh, that was a foolish confidence, perhaps. 
Nobody else knows it. Nobody. And now, old 
man, your hand. We are friends now; no re- 
ligious opinions . . . and no girl, — no girl, — shall 
come between me and the man I’ve talked to as 
I talked to you.” 

No girl should come between us ! The shade of 
jealousy was banned, and we began eagerly to 
belittle Eros with good-will, calling examples 
from bygone time to hearten us. “ Where,” 
queried Waltham Eliot, “ would Luther have 
come out, if he had been hampered by such 
things. ‘ God help me. I can no other.’ — 
Eh?” 

“Or Washington crossing the Delaware,” I 
added, remembering the picture, “ if he'd had a 
mess of women in the boat ! ” This was humour, 
and we laughed at the merry conceit. A country- 
store was near us, and I dragged in my friend 
that we might drink a mug of root-beer to our 
eternal friendship. He commended the vintage, 
and I, moved beyond my wont, recited to him, 
in low but meaning tones, some verses of T. 
Moore which I had lately met in a volume of 
Choice Selections , and which seemed to me expres- 
sive as might be : — 


122 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


“ Friend of my soul, this goblet sip ; 

’Twill chase the pensive tear ; 

’Tis not so sweet as woman’s lip, 

But, ah ! ’tis more sincere.” 

“You’re right, my boy,” said Waltham Eliot ; 
“ dead right.” 


II 


Then the weather went back from cool to hot, 
and from hot to sheer broiling. — “ What were 
you going to say, Eliot ? ” 

I looked up from my manuscript, and saw my 
young guest shaking his head. “ Major, Major,” 
he groaned ; “ how much history do you allow 
to this romance ? About a gill to a gallon ? 
And my uncle seems such an infernal prig ! 
‘ Honour ! ’ — Why, I believe I prefer Upps him- 
self to this mirage of yours. Upps is solid.” 

“ Not at all. We were idealists. Youngsters 
now don’t make swords out of old lath and act, 
as I and my boy friends used to do, Ivanhoe 
or the Fair Maid of Perth! How can you? 
You’ve no sentiment. You’ve no imagination. 
You’ve no ideals. And you don’t even read 
Ivanhoe and the Fair Maid of Perth ! ” 

“ They jam that sort of thing into us at school 
and tire us of it.” 

“ More’s the pity.” 

“ But, Major, surely you agree that my good 
uncle ought to have been jolly well spanked 
at the outset of his idealism ? All that tall 
123 


124 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


talk is absolutely immoral. And haven’t you 
stuck some big words into his mouth? — Eh, 
Major ? ” 

“ No, sir. No. Not consciously , at least. 
And confound you, listen 1 See what you 
make of your uncle when I’ve told all the 
story. Wait for the end.” 

“Is it . . . in sight ? ” 

I shook my fist at him, and went on. — 

That day when the weather turned was a 
memorable one for Waltham Eliot and me. 
Sunrise came bright and keen over a pomp of 
latter August, with cornfields waving in the 
wind, a deeper green in the rain-scoured foliage 
of oak and chestnut, and spots of premature red 
on the huge maple by our drive. My friend 
stepped briskly in, greeted my mother in his 
chivalrous way, and then clapped me on the 
shoulder, man to man. “Well, Damon,” he 
said, in his airy Boston fashion, “and what 
shall it be this morning ? ” 

There was nothing particular to do, and that 
was the pity of it ; an active bout at ball, a 
hard walk, had averted tragedy. We loafed 
and dallied, halting at the barn to look at a 
lame horse, to inspect the setter pups, and 
sauntering out upon the road. Up or down ? 
Dice of fate, ye ever loaded, why was it ujp f 
The breeze had fallen ; the sun was pouring out 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


125 


heat of the steady, veteran sort which August 
alone can breed, which courses along the blood 
till it begets a whim, and then turns that whim 
into a passion. I flung a stone at a corpulent 
robin, coming close to slaughter. 

“ Why do you do that ? ” 

“ Shut up,” quoth I, in my dissolute Pennsyl- 
vania drawl. — We were passing Uncle Charles’s 
gate; another shameless old epicure, digesting 
worms behind his flaunting red waistcoat, sat 
on the post; I made a second and more elabo- 
rate attempt to kill. 

“ Huh ! ” sneered Boston. 

“ What do you mean by your Huh ? ” 

“ Successful cruelty is something ; that , — ” he 
finished with an excellent imitation of a shrug. 
He was very cutting, and my sarcasm was out 
of repair. 

“ Get up on the post yourself and give me a 
shot at double distance. We’ll see who’ll huh!” 

“You have a queer notion of personal combat, 
Heigh. However, — ” 

« However what ? ” 

“ Never mind, my good man. Never mind.” 
He drew out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. 
“ Deuce of a climate ! Ninety odd in the shade, 
I’m sure, or I’m a codfish. — Gad ! ” 

“ I wouldn’t curse, anyway.” 

“ Curse ? Curse ? My good man, — ” He 


126 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


seemed to like the phrase ; “ My good man, — ” 
he repeated. I did not like it, and said so. 
He informed me I might change adjective and 
noun as I pleased. In any case, he withdrew 

the noun The affair grew unsatisfactory. 

And at this moment, round a bend of the road 
came Kriemhild West. She gave an appropri- 
ate start as she saw us, and let her sunshade 
drop back upon her shoulder. Her eyes were 
bright and dancing; some cause, whether from 
within or from without, had clearly changed her 
mood ; and both Eliot and I could not resist an 
impulse to glance each at the other in query 
what this meant. Bishops, missions, and all 
ascetic views of life, had certainly had their 
day ; the rose at her bosom, the poise of her 
head, the coolness and freshness of her provoca- 
tive youth, combined in unmistakable evidence 
that she was once more upon the true business 
of womankind. Sixteen she was ; at this deli- 
cious mark on the dial, her English ancestress, of 
a century or so before, had been thought more 

than ripe for marriage There is still this 

differencing grace in Kriemhild ; it passed, with 
maturity, into her character; but then in the 
old days, it ruled without admixture as con- 
vincing but inexplicable charm. Like all women 
whose loveliness of face and form is backed by 
character, she still has the youthful appeal ; she 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 127 

defies time with the magic of that incommuni- 
cable secret which the ancients knew as beauty, 
but which our crass generations seldom try to 
see and never understand. Her white hair now 
has the look of ... I must cross this out when 
I put in the false names. — “ Did you speak, 
Eliot?” 

“ No, Major, I did not speak.” 

“ I thought you did. — I wonder you’re not 
laughing.” 

“ No, Major, I am not laughing.” 

“ Yes. — Quite so. Where was I ? — Ah.” — 
Well, the long and short of it was that she 
looked at us both, nodded on the level, — if you 
know what I mean, — laughed merrily and 
asked us where was the funeral. “ Eat some- 
thing sweet,” she commanded. “ You seem to 
need it.” And with that she extended a paper of 
bon-bons to Waltham Eliot. “ Strangers first, — 
John,” she sparkled, as she turned to me. “ Now 
for friends.” 

“ Of course he’s a friend. Ha ! Why do 
Quakers call themselves friends, Miss West? Is 
it because they never fight anybody ? ” 

Kriemhild gave a smile to the jester, a look of 
sympathy to me, and for both of us declared 
that here were at least two good friends of hers 
who didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t, and shouldn’t 
fight. — “ Boys fight,” she added sententiously ; 


128 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


it was the amende honorable. But I looked 
gloomy. I never enjoyed chaff ; and the Boston 
variety called out my particular ire. “ My grand- 
mother was a Quaker, Mr. Eliot,” she added 
impressively. 

“ I shall reverence the sect forever,” announced 
the facile youth. I suppose he got some of this 
tall talk out of novels, and the rest was just 
Boston and precocity in even portions. He went 
on in his airy style. “ We burned the Quakers 
up our way once, I believe, or hanged them ; but 
bless me, you burn us poor Bostonians to the 
fourth generation when we visit you in summer. 
Ninety-five in the shade ! And you look so 
bewitchingly cool, — though we are holding you 
here in the road like a pair of highwaymen. — 
Heigh ! ” He nodded to me authoritatively, by 
way of hint that there were social duties here 
for him who could see them. But Kriemhild 
held her ground. With the air of a chess-player 
who opens for a fool’s mate in the most ac- 
cidental way, “ Are you going,” she queried, “ to 
the lawn-party, — the fete chamjpitre, you know, 
— at Mrs. Riddle’s ? ” It was brave French ; 
and we knew that she referred to festivities at a 
country-place some miles away. Misogynists of 
late, we two had agreed that, if we went, we 
should look on haughtily awhile, and disappear 
after exaggerated politeness to the elderly ladies 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


129 


and a few words on current politics to the host. 
Our views were not so definite now. 

“ I’m not doing much in that line, you know,” 
said Waltham Eliot, in monastic tones. — I, for 
my part, said I guessed I’d go. 

“ And which of you will drive me ... us, I 
mean, over there ? ” She fairly sparkled. “ You 
see, aunts are going to drive for a call on old 
Mrs. Blessys, and she lives only a mile from Mr. 
Riddle ; and our coachman is busy ; and aunts 
thought — one of you would drive us. There’s 
only room for one.” 

Normally situated, I should have seen through 
this “ one of you ” in an instant. The old ladies 
knew me as a driver proved and worthy of all 
trust ; while Dighton Perry, a sadder and wiser 
uncle in the case of his own horses, had pro- 
claimed loudly and everywhere the nephew’s un- 
fitness even for juvenile recreations in a goat-cart. 
Aunts, of course, had simply sent word to Johnny 
Heigh that he was a nice boy, and, their com- 
pliments, would he come to their rescue as 
charioteer; but the message was entrusted to 
Helen of Troy. All this went through my head 
just five seconds after we had both exploded in 
affirmation of zeal without bounds. 

“ How good you both are,” she said. And I 
remember the little dry insects in the grass 
about us that rasped out their acute accent of 


130 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


the heat in a kind of choral repetition. “ How- 
good-you-both-are ! ” 

“Well, say which one is to do it,” said I. I be- 
gan to see the plot and was impatient ; and the sun 
on that dusty road fairly set one’s brain dancing. 

“ I shall make an enemy for life ! ” 

“ Try it.” — I felt this to be conversation. 

“ Maybe fate will send a substitute,” suggested 
the Bostonian. 

“ If George Clayton came from West Point 
this morning instead of to-night. . . .” 

“ Cousins should be barred.” 

A little noise behind us made me glance over 
my shoulder. The Heighs are a practical race. 
“ Here is a substitute,” I said, and laughed heartily 
at my idea. “ Here comes Linsey Cards. He’ll 
do. — Linsey, you’re wanted.” — Now who was 
Linsey Cards? 

Nobody knew. He had come years before to 
Philadelphia, a mere baby, with a father who 
gave lessons in writing, took futile shots at 
literature, tried to make a living while warding 
off consumption, and died at about the proper 
point in that unequal strife. Mild as a sheep, 
pathetically deferential, this melancholy artiste 
manquS was stubborn on one point; he would 
say nothing of his own past, or of the wife who 
died before she had fairly trodden city streets ; 
it looked, observant folk remarked, like a prom- 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


131 


ise made to her. They had the air of an ex- 
patriated, romantically loving couple who had 
married against the wishes of flinty parents at 
home. Some vague rumour had it that the wife 
was a country girl of good strain out Ohio way, 
and made a runaway match with her feckless 
but amiable teacher of “penmanship.” From 
the old ambrotype of them, Cards’s sole inherit- 
ance, you saw that this wife had determination 
and energy enough for fifty men. She had 
given the boy his name, Linsey Attila Cards ; it 
smacked of intelligent nomads in the West, meet- 
ing a stray history or cyclopaedia here and there. 
And so our Cards was a clanless person. With- 
out that consumptive sire, his ovine acquiescence 
in everything from rejected poems to the price 
one chose to pay him for his copying, his ab- 
surd hair, his apologetic cough, his uncanny 
suggestion of Italian organ-grinders — without 
all this, it would have been a fair case of ro- 
mance for Linsey Cards. We could have taken 
Scottish ancestry for granted, spelled it “Lindsay” 
and set him up as the lost heir ; but, as a case 
of charity, it failed to touch any imaginative 
chords; and my maternal uncle, who always 
asked, with a delicate intake of the breath and 
a halfway closing of the eyes, whether one “ had 
blood,” referred to young Cards as « the Found- 
ling whom we employ at the office and find very 


132 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


biddable.” Foundling was asinine, of course. I 
have seen many asses, by the way, in the course 
of a long life, but nothing so thoroughly the 
ass, and Philadelphia ass at that, as my ma- 
ternal uncle. He had “blood”; but something 
had got into his milk. Even my mother, with 
all her reverence for kin, laughed at his silly 
affectations. Still, we felt nothing wrong about 
his attitude toward Cards, considered as atti- 
tude; it was the expression of it that got on 
our nerves. My father, who had first given 
work to the poor poet, and then rescued orphan 
Linsey from sordid and precarious existence in 
the family of a German cobbler, sending the 
boy to school, and finally putting him into the 
office, always treated his charge as an equal 
and predicted fine things of him. A portrait 
of my father hangs to-day in Cards’s private 
office. . . . And here was this fellow now, nine- 
teen, stocky, shy, efficient, and of a silence 
almost preternatural, taking his two weeks’ 
vacation at a farm-house near by and admitted 
to some intercourse with Eliot and me. I con- 
ceded his sharpness in figures, his strength and 
skill in games, his efficiency on errands, but 
resented my sire’s proclivity to make an example 
of him for me. My sense of humour leaped to 
life at this chance to offset the Bostonian and 
his knight-errant ways. 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


133 


“ Come here, Linsey,” I said. 

He had lifted his hat, not with the movement 
of custom, and yet not like a clown. He blushed 
slightly, but did not look the fool. — “Well?” 
he asked me. 

“ Oh ! — Why, — you know Bill Riddle ? The 
old man’s in the office.” 

“ Well ? ” 

" Bill told me to tell you to come to the lawn- 
party this afternoon. Yes he did, Kriemhild ! 
Honest injun, Linsey ! I forgot it. Miss Patty 
wants somebody to drive her and Miss West over 
there. We — Eliot and I — can’t do it, — you 
see ? You are to do it.” 

Diplomacy, humour, and truth seldom travel 
together, as I now began to perceive. Eliot had 
struck an attitude of contemptuous patience ; and 
Cards was looking straight at me, the flush in his 
face deepened by hearing from his fair neighbour 
something uncommonly like a suppressed snort. 
— I cannot withdraw the word. — Then he spoke. 

“I think Miss West does not care for that 
arrangement,” he said ; and his tone carried such 
a sense of aloofness and of alien interests bravely 
borne, that Waltham Eliot glanced at him in 
sympathy. But my blood was up, the Heigh 
blood which likes to see a thing through. 

“ Linsey Cards won’t upset you, at any rate,” 
I remarked to Kriemhild, ignoring her rapidly 


134 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


telegraphed disapproval, and enjoying my allu- 
sion to Eliot’s experience with Dighton Perry’s 
carriage. The shot went home. The Bostonian 
turned to me with his icy manner. “ Thank you,” 
he said. “ I thank you. — Miss West, I withdraw 
in favour of these gentlemen who know how . . . 
to drive. Until this afternoon ! ” And he lifted 
his hat, Chesterfield, Grandison, Saladin, and 
George the Fourth, all combined in an obeisance 
to her and a haughty salute to us. Kriemhild 
took the cue, allowing herself first the luxury of 
one “ face,” a slight but unmistakable “ face,” for 
my benefit. 

“ I suppose,” she said with awful distinctness 
of utterance, “ that somebody will come and the 
somebody will have to be John Heigh.” Then she 
bowed to Eliot in her best dancing-school manner, 
smiled graciously to his previous words, and, cry- 
ing an revoir to him in an exhilarating French, 
smiled again, ignored Cards utterly, and went 
swiftly home. 

Waltham Eliot felt that he had scored. He, 
too, smiled slightly, and consulted his watch. 
“ Well, fellows,” he remarked airily, « let us 
retreat to our several shelters, — trees, — ice- 
houses, — whew ! — or else this damnable heat 
will give us all East Indian livers. I taste curry 
now ! ” Later privilege of intercourse with the 
Eliot family satisfied me that this preposterous 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


135 


phrase, entirely unintelligible at the time, was 
a combination of Uncle George, the cosmopol- 
itan, and a recent perusal of Vanity Fair. But 
it did its business. I fell back on mere bucolic 
retort. 

“ It’s a good enough climate for mm,” I said. 
“ Codfish don’t like it. And Linsey, old cock, 
it’s a good climate for driving in a cool linen 
suit, with a pretty girl by you, and tolls at the 
bridges , — eh ? ” 

Waltham Eliot’s face grew cloudy again. 

“ Only,” I went on in my buckish way, think- 
ing myself a very Pelham the while, “ you’ll 
have to put blinders on the aunts.” 

“ Oh ! ” burst out Waltham Eliot. And then, 
to my astonishment, the taciturn Cards made 
me a harangue. “ Don’t talk that way, please.” 
— The fellow was my father’s rescue from or- 
phan-asylums, newspaper-selling, what not ! — 
“Don’t talk that way. You are going to drive 
Miss West, and you ought not to put me into 
such a position. What is the use of all this? 
You and she are in the same class ” 

At this, Waltham Eliot suddenly threw back 
his head and whistled a loud, martial air ; and 
I thought it high time for fists, pushing by 
Cards, who, however, held his ground, averting 
my imminent outburst as he pointed down the 
road. Our carriage came rolling easily along, 


136 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


my mother in it; she waved a cheery salute to 
us, and gave her special smile to Eliot. “ Bring 
them both in to dinner, dear,” she called to 
me. 

This was the second interference of Woman. 
But it set me thinking, and something like 
remorse came over me for my lapse in dignity 
and my jests. And this Boston fellow was 

standing close to our very gates I have only 

two moods. 

“ Fellows,” I said, Eliot starting at my change 
of tone, “ it is hot, and I suppose I’m an ass. 
Let’s drop it all. Come in to dinner.” 

“ Thank you very much,” said the person for 
whom this invitation was meant as a halfway 
apology ; “ but I think not to-day, — thanks.” — 
He had a middle manner. — Cards said he guessed 
not, thank you very much, too, — and he 
guessed he’d cut across to Davis’s. But Eliot 
stopped him. 

“ Can’t you call for me, Cards, this afternoon ? 
Can’t you bring a team of some sort and take 
me ? My uncle’s horses. . . . Well, can you ? ” 

We both assured Cards that his invitation was 
in due form ; and indeed Mr. Riddle, who was a 
kind of partner in my maternal uncle’s firm, had 
bidden Cards by word of mouth. The young 
fellow was encouraged in this way on all harm- 
less occasions. But now he looked doubtful. 


IDYLL OP THE FOUNDING 


137 


“ I should like to talk more with you,” said 
Eliot, who was vastly pleased with Cards in 
the short encounters he had already had with 
him, “about Harvard College.” 

Talk of education always drew Cards like a 
magnet. “ I can get Davis’s plug and welcome,” 
he said. “ Perhaps he’ll pull us all the way. 
Can you stand a dirty old buggy, though ? ” 

“ With your company ? ” — It was gracefully 
said. “ Till three o’clock, then ! ” He nodded 
to Cards, waved a judicious farewell to me, then 
clasped his hands behind him and paced the 
roadside toward his uncle’s home with that 
measured tread and that poise which one sees 
in old prints of Napoleon at St. Helena. 
###### 

I donned the cool linen suit, to be sure ; 
but coolness was a stranger to my physical and 
moral man that afternoon, as I handed the aunts 
into their open two-seated carriage and offered 
my respectful assistance to Kriemhild. The maid, 
still more bewitching than ever in her festal 
array, spurned all help, and gave me one dis- 
dainful glance as she sprang lightly in and 
seated herself as far from me as space would 
allow. There is no disdain like a girl’s. The 
old ladies retreated behind their parasols, safe 
with Johnny Heigh at the reins and a horse in 
the shafts that was fit to.be a deacon for his 


138 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


sobriety; Kriemhild, too, rattled up her sunshade 
and tilted it well to me-ward, sitting there erect 
and remote ; and I, in that topless, varnished, sun- 
smitten vehicle, drove as it were alone into the 
flaming West. I drew out a handkerchief and 
wiped my brow ; a jolt sent my companion’s 
parasol denting into my cheek. “ Pardon me,” 
she said coldly. — “ Certainly,” was my pavid 
reply. — The horse had fallen into a walk by 
reason of what he called a hill ; I had no spirit 
to dispute it with him. The old ladies came 
from cover. — “ How careful Johnny is ! — What 
are you two chattering about ? ” And they fell 
back to their gossip. 

Was I built on the lines of common manhood ? 
I essayed society talk. — “ When do you get in 
your potatoes?” she asked me, and hummed a 
small tune without awaiting my indignant reply. 
I grew “ mad ” — and dignified. Sitting straight, 
and putting the old horse to his business, I spied 
well in front of us a wabbling, dilapidated buggy 
pulled by an animal that iron flails could not 
rouse from a shambling gait, half walk and half 
trot. “ Well,” I cried out involuntarily, “ well, 
I will be darned ! ” 

“ Not here ! ” she said superbly. 

“Well,” I said, “that’s Davis’s team, and your 
fine friend is in it. I don’t want to exaggerate, but 
I think , — I think — this Bucephalus of yours can 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


139 


and will overtake them ! ” Four syllables, — and 
a good dose of sarcasm. She paid no attention 
to it. Gazing at the crazy, curtainless outfit, 
we could both see the sturdy figure of Cards and, 
intimately beside him in the attitude of gracious 

converse, our easy and aristocratic Bostonian 

I braced myself for the very worst of female 
scorn and disdain ; can ever man who is born of 
woman tell what woman will do whether on a 
throne or on a bicycle ? We were rapidly over- 
hauling the buggy, but not half so swiftly as my 
companion’s tongue loosened and moved in 
animated, friendly phrase. Her eyes beamed 
pleasantly upon me ; amazed, I apologized for 
my rude remark about her aunt’s horse. — « Ask 
aunt if I may drive, just with you some day, 
behind Major!” Major was our own pet 
Morgan. ... I was thrilled to the heart. — “ This 
parasol is a nuisance ! ” She furled it, smiling ; 
and under cover of the movement came near 
enough to touch me, to brush my elbow. Along 
my veins ran the exultation of joy, speeding 
somehow to the astonished horse, who suddenly 
remembered from what ancestors he sprang and 
mended his pace to a miracle. I sat like a god, 
Kriemhild close to me, and so we flashed by 
that desolation of loose boards and wabbling 

wheels Absorbed, chattering, laughing into 

my very face, she turned with a splendid ejacu- 


140 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


lation of surprise as we clove the dust of Davis’s 
rig and for a second or so were abreast of the 
pair. Interruption of intimate converse with 
me ; astonishment ; gracious pity ; those were 
three cards which my companion threw rapidly 
on the table for the benefit of Waltham Eliot. . . . 
How pale and saintly his face looked in the sift 
of that golden dust, his straw hat on his lap, his 
attitude so correct ! . . . By his side, Cards 
looked grubby. The aunts said so, and bewailed 
certain phases of democratic life ; kindness was 
one thing, “But in our day, Johnny,” — ah! 
Mr Riddle had asked him, yes. And after all 
who were the Riddles? They said this young 
Cards would make his money, did they ? Thank 
heaven, Philadelphia might see many an evil 
time, but never one when money could buy its 
way into real society; never that. “We leave 
that to New York, Johnny, — don’t we?” — The 
“ we ” soothed me like slow notes on a violin ; 
and how tenderly I helped those dear old dames 
down for their long afternoon with Mrs. Blessys ! 
— I climbed nimbly back, drove proudly off, and 
was alone with the sweet of the year. Now, 
blood of all the Heighs ! 

The parasol was still furled ; but it was 
propped against the seat between us . . . like a 
sword. I knew a bit of history ! I wished, too, 
that there had been no empty seat behind us ; the 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


141 


breath of the dusky Horatian attendant seemed to 
float thence by me and leave me cold at the heart. 
The situation was not normal ; by bucolic reck- 
oning a “ buggy ” was indicated for our case, 
and some men working in the fields gave need- 
lessly emphatic voice to this view. I repressed 
the retort, and glanced uneasily at Kriemhild ; 
she sat haughtily indifferent. Silence for a 
minute or two ; and then we came into a stretch 
of road with woods on each side, cool, solitary as 
the primeval forest, and down a long incline the 
glimmer of rippling water, and a bridge. 

« Darby Bridge ! ” I was about to say, like a 
guide-book, but bit my tongue ; statistics ! I 
felt that she was looking at the bridge ; did she 
know, — suspect, — wish ? The sympathetic 
horse fell into a deliberate walk 

“ Are you so fond of Quaker-meeting ? — I’m 
not.” She was apparently addressing some one 
on the fence. — “ Go on and talk about some- 
thing, — crops ! — How many more miles have 
we to go ? ” Three neat little stabs for a maid 
of sixteen, and quite new to her work. 

I made a cheerful calculation of the distance, 
giving two conflicting authorities and stating my 
own emphatic preference. 

“ So much ? ” — She yawned like the duchess 
in a sewing-girl’s novel. Then she begged my 
pardon with great asperity ; frowned ; and pro- 


142 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


ceeded to laugh outright, stopping suddenly like 
one of those waterfalls in Switzerland when the 
franc’s worth is exhausted. “ How excellently 
you do drive ! ” And with that she began to 
hum a little tune, the same diabolical Frenchy 
thing I had heard Eliot hum in the morning. 
Just then the sagacious old horse put his foot 
upon the bridge ; some birds flew up from one 
end of a loose plank and perched upon a sapling 
that slanted over the brook ; freshness came 
about us from the broken water below, as it 
foamed and dashed by great rocks; and I re- 
membered that I was man. 

Your boy’s heart is a strange tryst for beasts 
and gods at once. I trembled a little, shifted the 
reins to my right hand, bent over, and kissed her. 

“You will never do that again, you know,” 
she said evenly ; and her face, when I dared to 
look at her, was inscrutably cold and calm save 
for a slight quiver about the corners of the 
mouth. — Would she weep? — What had I 
done ? A revulsion of feeling was on me ; my 
intentions were of the most honourable charac- 
ter ; and what yokel trick had I played on this 
bright and beauteous creature entrusted to my 
care ! Bernorse : like Randolph of Roanoke, I 
saw the word in lurid letters above the horse’s 
ears, whither I now directed my melancholy 
gaze. “ Forgive me, Kriemhild ! ” I murmured. 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


143 


A little catching noise in her breath was all my 

reply Had I only sent those beasts packing a 

minute ago ! In revenge I gave audience to all 
the gods that my soft heart could hold. . . . 

« Eliot ! ” 

“ Well, Major.” 

“ Are you laughing ? ” 

“ The laugh you would like, Major ! ” 

“ You know, I suspect these audiences with the 
gods are sometimes out of order ! Eh ? ” 

“ I think you might have kept . . . well, one of 
the milder beasts on guard, Major ! Women are 
said to be fond of animals. ... If you had . . .” 

“ Do you think so, boy ? ” 

“ A dashed good chance, sir ! Two to one on 
you, anyway, against that preposterous uncling 
of mine, would have been my bet, if — ” 

“Ah, — -if. Well, it wasn’t.” 

“ So it seems. But keep the gods or angels 
now, Major. They ought to be grateful. — And 
what happened next ? ” 

Well, I’ll tell you — cutting the manuscript 
a bit. The horse whisked his confounded old 
tail, as if in disgust, and struck into a trot. He 
wanted to get away from such a scene. It jolted 
us ; I did what good drivers never ought to do, 
and gave him a cut for his pains ; and away we 
went. Kriemhild said, “Oh !” — and indeed it 
was not like me, I grant you. 


144 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


We sat at the respective ends of our seat ; and 
presently more bitterness came in the shape of 
some fellows in a barnyard, who sung out to us 
not to be “mad,” but kiss and make up. — I 
was peer to these ; and theirs was the oracle I 
had followed ! And I sighed. And presently — 
the Riddle gateway was just looming ahead of 
us — Kriemhild West broke out into a long, 
merry laugh, a girl’s laugh, a good laugh, a 
silvery, sweet laugh. I faced around and made 
my clumsy, honest plea for grace. She put her 
hand very lightly on my shoulder. “ Oh, John, 
John ! ” was all she said. It was encouraging, 
but not perspicuous. “ What do you mean ? ” I 
queried. “ You'll never know,” she answered, 
as we drove into the populous lawn. ... I don’t 

know now 

“ Eliot ! ” 

“Yes, Major.” 

“ I never tried to find out anywhere else.” 

“ I knew that , sir.” 

###### 
Well, the lawn-party ran its course as such 
affairs always do. Waltham Eliot and a girl 
from New York were our distinguished guests, 
and neither of them achieved an unqualified 
triumph. The athletic damsel had not arrived 
in 1855, but we were fond of healthy cheeks and 
red lips, of white sound teeth, of eyes bright with 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


145 


exercise ; the Quaker element, and also, I hope, 
the right strain in us, kept maiden manners rea- 
sonably quiet. But here in the Gothamite 
woman were loud, shrill ways, a pasty com- 
plexion, much darting and languishing of the 
glance, and a too exuberant fashion of dress. 
Only the outright country boys were taken in ; 
Philadelphia scents New York pretences at a 
league away. No, the girl made a poor run of 
it. Eliot, however, could have won hands down, 
but for his ways and his speech ; opinion among 
the boys set against him as a sayer of things not 
understanded of the people. The girls were 
ready to worship him, but he spurned their cult ; 
and Mr. Congreve, in a famous tragedy now sel- 
dom read, notes the effect of scorn upon the 
female heart. His assiduity of attention to 
Kriemhild West amounted to monopoly. I 
found myself among the boys — one must be 
fair and square with a rival — defending his 
good name as swimmer, wrestler, ball-player, 
and general man of his hands. The girls cared 
for none of these things ; but were almost offen- 
sive in their pointed remarks about Kriemhild’s 
lack of reserve. She was fairly excited, and 
queened the place in her triumphant beauty. 
Once, as she passed me, she looked me sparkling 
in my face, and whispered — “ I supposed you 
would be getting up a game of Copenhagen by 


146 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


now — John Heigh?” Copenhagen was a kiss- 
ing-game, detested by matrons, and used only 
for rustic merry-makings like the Union Sunday- 
school picnic. I blushed hotly, fumbled for my 
retort ; and she was gone. . . . But I was to drive 
her home. Copenhagen, quotha ? — I looked 
over my mental menagerie. 

At last it was time to go. “ Kriemhild West ? 
Oh, somewhere — of course — with that Boston 
boy ! Yes, your horse is ready.” I sought her. 

I found her hanging over a rustic bridge, less 
than a stone’s throw from the throng, but hidden 
by thick shrubbery, and with that Boston boy 
indeed at her side, abominably at her side. It 
was the fashion in those days for women to wear 
very full sleeves ; and girls of Kriemhild’s age 
were free of the custom. Engaged in the amiable 
and absorbing business of shying pebbles — he 
had gathered them for her, of course — at the 
minnows which darted about in the clear brook 
beneath, she was constantly coming into en- 
tanglements with bark and knots of the rustic 
handrail. Her cavalier had just offered to pin 
back this rebellious drapery of her round white 
arm. . . . 

“ Major ! ” 

. . . her Round White Arm, and, as I came up, 
was accomplishing the details of his task with a 
certain ghastly deliberation. In return, she was 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


147 


relating him an anecdote, and extracting promises 
that he would “ never tell . . Her dark violet 
eyes, the flush of her face, the sunbeams that 
played through the foliage upon her hair, her . . . 

“ No, Major ; you must not go on with that. I 
can’t stand it. It harrows me. . . .” 

— Hang you! — Well, her breath was in his 
very eyes. The anecdote, he assured her, was 
amusing beyond precedent. “ Fancy ! ” he cried 
in fine virile chest-tones. “ Fancy ! ” she repeated, 
taking his accent like another Christabel. Fate’s 
hand was on us all that afternoon. I, too, fell 
into his damnable Bostonese, and brought out a 
loud “ Fancy ! ” coupled nobly with the memo- 
rable and already imitated “ Huh ! ” of our matu- 
tinal quarrel. “ Huh ! ” I said, and paused at the 
planks of the bridge. — A bridge again ! 

“ Well, I’m ... I beg your pardon, Miss West ! 
Heigh, dear man, you are abrupt, — abrupt.” It 
was a contest between the smile of victory and 
the frown of annoyance as he eyed me. The 
smile deepened as he scanned my features, cock- 
ing his face slightly to one side. “ Heigh, dear 
man, why this agitation ? It is not — just now 
— repose that stamps the caste of Heigh-de- 
Heigh, — the Heighs of Hayseed Park ! ” 

I object to liberties with my name, and in my 
time have hit out on such an occasion. — “ Are you 
training for a detective?” he went on. “I’ve 


148 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


stolen nothing.” — A slight but arch glance at 
Kriemhild may have been betrayal or may have 
been a blind for me. I was trying to whistle, 
and casually to announce the time to leave ; 
Eliot should have stopped where he was, but the 
wine of very young love was in his veins. Per- 
haps, too, he chafed to think of the drive home. 
“ I say,” he called to me in a tone close upon 
insolence, “-are you feeling all right ? You look 
just a bit yellow about the gills, dear man. 
Cigar? Of course not. Corn-silk in a penny 
pipe ? No ? Well, my word, then it’s the 
lemonade ! Eh, Heigh ? Heigh f — It’s the limo- 
nado ! ” 

“ Oh, Mr. Eliot ! Don't mind him, — Johnny ! ” 

Johnny! Mr. Eliot! That infernal Heigh! Bolts 
and shackles ! I knew what to do; but how f Sud- 
denly I saw. — In my dear old Uncle Charles’s 
lumber-room I had once found a London “ Book 
of Etiquette : the Complete Gentleman’s Vade 
Mecum ” ; it bore the date of 1805, and reflected 
such deportment as bucks like Tom and Jerry, 
forgotten heroes, were wont to cultivate in the 
Regent’s day. I remembered the book’s section 
on “ Behaviour under Insult ” ; ajplonib , of course, 
haughty visage, definite word and deed. Keep 
your temper in hand , it ran. Empty your wine- 
glass into the face of your opponent , but upon no 
consideration throw the glass also. That is vulgar. 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


149 


Good. I had no wine-glass, but a tray was near 
me on a little table, and although the tumblers 
were all gone, the pitcher was there half full of 
lemonade. Limonado he called it, eh ? — I can see 
that flagrant beverage now ; lukewarm stuff, shin- 
ing dull in the sunlight, with seeds floating on it, 
and two flies, and a bit of bark, and a yellow 
hornet just dropped in, struggling angrily for 

escape I approached the table 

“ Beware the bowl, — beware ! ” shouted Eliot, 
now mere boy in his triumph ; Kriemhild was 
giggling like the hoyden she was. Keep your 
temper m hamd , said the Book. Good. I grasped 
the pitcher steadily. Empty into the face of your 
opponent. My intentions were of the best ; my 
nerves were not quite firm. So! — I doused 
my grinning young lord heartily, yes, and before 
the grin had died away ; but a good gill of 
the mawkish fluid went wide, discharging itself 
upon Kriemhild’s gown. I saw two faces, one 
red, one red and white ; people came up behind 
me ; voices rang high ; the bearded visage of my 
host confronted me. I say no more. 


Ill 


We all came home in some way ; a boys’ 
quarrel had been the verdict, and sympathy for 
Kriemhild’s gown was more than balanced by 
a lively sense of justice achieved on the prepos- 
terous young fellow from Boston. « Asked me 
if I was the local Jehu , by gosh ! ” said Tom 
Blessys, who had been known to drive tandem. 
“Knock him down if he gives you any lip, 
Johnny!” — But it did me no good, this sym- 
pathy of youth and maid ; I had cut a poor figure 
of it, and . . . chefard senza Eurydice ? 

Well after nightfall, I was kicking at the 
pebbles of our drive and rehearsing that fatal 
scene for the fiftieth time, with the variant 
might-have-been for afterpiece. Up in the dark 
came one of Dighton Perry’s farm-hands and 
made me jump ; “ very important,” he whispered, 
thrust a folded paper into my hand, and disap- 
peared silently in the night. Huh ! I muttered 
involuntarily, and slipped to the library window, 
whence came both a square of light and my 
father’s even voice as he read The Hewcomes — 
out of Harper's Monthly Magazine — to my 
150 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


151 


mother. There was something about a colonel 
dying, and my father had to stop once or twice ; 
it seemed pathetic. Bah ! What is feigned 
tragedy to the ills of real life, such as mine? 
I read my note. Disguise your face, it ran, if you 
read this before the family . Meet me at the quarry 
not later than six-thirty to-morrow A.M. Clayton 
has arrived from West Point , but I fear to commu- 
nicate with him on account of suspicions at Roadside. 
— Roadside was Miss Patty’s place. — Cards has 
promised to attend us. He thinhs it fists / I have 
not undeceived him. Procure the swords , if you 
please, from Colonel Chas. Heights library ; I re- 
gret to impose this charge on you, but see no other 
way . — Your oV. ser 1 ., Waltham Eliot. — P.S. 
Cards is strongly advised that no third name shall 
be mentioned $ simply that the lie has been passed. — 
W. E. 

This formidable note, composed with great 
care, I read twice from end to end ; as I finished, 

my father’s voice came more broken than ever 

I listened. “ At the usual evening hour the 
chapel-bell began to toll,” he brought laboriously 
out, and so to the Adsum, where my mother 

sobbed aloud If she knew the bitterness of 

death hanging over her own house ! . . . 

Twice or thrice in the night I went to cool 
my head by the open window and to gaze, per- 
chance for the last time, upon a new-risen waning 


152 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


moon. I had settled all my affairs. On my best 
fishing-rod I stuck a card : “ For Billy, with John’s 
best love.” Billy was my little orphan cousin 

who lived with us And so it would have to 

be swords, would it ? He had said so in that 
revelation two weeks ago. And he thought 
Quakers would never fight, did he ? He had 
sneered it but yesterday — yesterday ! — morn- 
ing. And I gazed into the deeps of the sky, and 
as I wondered if the katydids always made a 
boiler-shop of the night in that fashion, and how 
I always slept through it, suddenly came com- 
mon sense faring into my dark thoughts with 
lanterns of ridicule and a whole illumination of 
protest. — “ Walk down to the quarry and give 
him a couple in the face ; or, better, make it up.” 
— So spoke the peace-democrat within me, to 
use a forgotten figure of war time ; with what 
result, one may guess. Then common sense be- 
gan to call me names. “ Ass ! ” it jeered. « No,” 
I answered ; “ Man ! ” — I went back to bed and 
slept uneasily until dawn. 

Rising, not without a sense of firmness and 
decision, I dressed to the chirping of birds in 
the ivy, said my prayers, — boys said their 
prayers in those days, and men too, — and slipped 
Her little gift, first reading the Burial Service in 
it, into a pocket of my flannel shirt, close over 
my heart. Going noiselessly downstairs, I heard 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


153 


the regular breathings of my sire, a performance 
of some publicity at which I was wont to laugh ; 
this time I was aware of an almost intolerable 
weakness. The old house-dog thrust his nose 

into my hand Red eyes on the field of 

honour ? I must have been nigh upon rousing 
the family as I blew my nose. — 

They were opening the house at my Uncle 
Charles’s ; but no one saw me as I whipped into 
the library, took down the crossed swords, and 
escaped through the garden under the long grape 
arbours, out into the wet fields, and so at last to 
the quarry. 

“ What in thunder are you going to do with 
those things ? ” — Linsey Cards was agitated ; 
he had come out to look, not, like Saul the son 
of Kish, for his father’s asses, but for his patron’s ; 
he found, not in himself but in his company, the 
mood of kings. Sulky and silent, I swung a 
sword in each hand ; Waltham Eliot stood, cor- 
rect in poise, with tightly folded arms. I noted 
the shirt, the sleeves rolled up ; he was in his 
socks, — I suppose for the sake of unhampered 
agility. His arms were a city boy’s arms, just a 
trifle too white and meagre. But he was game. 
. . . Suppose my sword, this ridiculous, heavy 
affair, came crashing down on that white skin ? 
— Waltham Eliot made his little speech. 

« Cards,” he said kindly, but firmly, “ I appeal 


154 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


to your discretion. Two gentlemen here,” — 
Cards winced — “ have passed the lie, — nothing 
else in it, sir; and they must fight. A third 
gentleman ” — Cards smiled in a furtive fashion 
as Eliot made him a bow, — “will be discreet, 
and will see fair play. No, sir. No apologies 
or settlement ! To any one else I should say 
that we would make cold meat of the man that 

should undertake to spoil sport, sir ! Now 

Thank you, Mr. Heigh, I am sure the swords are 
alike ; thank you . . . now, Cards, kindly let us 
take our positions. When you judge us ready . . . 

You have no handkerchief Ah, that’s pistols. 

Well, sir, count — count one — two — three : so. 
At three , Mr. Heigh and I . . . exactly.” 

I once spoke “ Horatius at the Bridge ” before 
our big school, and I know what a speech is ; 
Eliot did well with this one, I’ll say that for 
him. He was pale, and a word stuck here and 
there in his mouth, which seemed very dry. I 
knew how that was, too. But he did it ; and then, 
that felicitous phrase about “ cold meat ” ! It 
was poetry. “ Are you ready, sir ? ” he said to me. 

“ I’d like a drink of water,” I said frankly ; 
“ but never mind.” 

Linsey Cards jumped into the fray. “Cer- 
tainly you must have a drink,” he said. “ There’s 
a spring in the next field, and the men’s bottle. 
I’ll fetch it.” 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


155 


“None of that, Foxy Cards,” I sung out, for 
I saw the working and darting of the tail of his 
eye. “None of that! You’ll blow the thing!” 

“ How can I ? ” he said blandly. “ Who’s here 
now ? ” — The fields indeed lay lonely, the hay- 
crop all gathered, and no sign of life about us. 
Eliot nodded assent. 

Cards was gone some time, but not more than 
was reasonable. The water was very refreshing 
indeed, and I thought how precious seemed the 
little things of this life, and how bountiful was 
the round of pleasure in the doings of an ordinary 
day. And now the man Cards set up a most 
amazing series of measurings and pacings, cocked 
his eye at the sun, scratched lines in the earth of 
the quarry, now here, now there . . . shook his 
head cannily. “ I’m trying to get into the spirit 
of this thing,” he explained, “ and I tell you, here 
is the only level place where you can fight and 
not be seen from the road. And you’ll have to 
wait about five minutes till the sun clears that 
bare rock. It reflects dead into one of your 
eyes.” — Eliot balked a little, not so much at 
the grammar as at the statement ; he began to 
examine and argue. The discussion seeming 
to be interminable, I dropped on a clean bit of 
ground and stared into the swallows’ holes in 
the bank ; was it too late for all the second brood ? 
I threw a stone at one; it has been my habit 


156 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


through life to throw stones ; and as this shot 
precipitated a little avalanche of earth and grit, 
Eliot jumped half out of his skin, and Cards gave 
a great start of surprise. Our nerves were off, 
for a fact. Human nature could stand the thing 
no longer, and I leaped up. “ Confound the 
sun,” I said. “ Let’s begin, rock or no rock. 
I’ll face it.” 

“Very good, sir. Begin with all my heart. 
But I insist on lots drawn for position ! ” — 
Bayard ! 

A Sidney for return, I said “no,” and again, 
“ Confound the sun ” ; and Cards came into the 
thing with a volubility and a wealth of ejacula- 
tions I never knew in him before or since ; and 
at last whipping ourselves into some sort of slant 
to the solar objectipn, and grasping our swords 
in sheer extreme of nervous excitement, with 
“ One side, Cards, if you will, kindly,” and « Clear 
out, Lin Cards, and take your skin out of reach,” 
and “Now, sir,” and “ Now, sir,” and “ Come on,” 
and “ Come on, then,” we fell into place for the 
old broadsword work we had played so often with 
laths on exact model of the military exercise ; 
and Cards, awkwardly plunging about us, was in 
a fair way to give to glory what was meant for 
finance, bawding to us to wait, and nearly losing 
an ear as I whisked my sword once or twice to 
make my arm lissome ; when suddenly, above 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


157 


the noise, came a “ Johnny, oh, Johnny,” in the 
familiar tones of our negro butler, the fastest 
runner on the place. Then round the quarry- 
wall rushed our house-dog on the bound, making 
savagely at Cards as the nearest approach to a 
culprit ; then Nehemiah, the butler ; and then, 
after some interval, my panting, horror-stricken 

father with a face white as chalk We were 

betrayed. 

The invaders gasped for breath. Then rose a 
rattle of little wheels, and Uncle Charles rolled 
up in his chair, his face set in the queerest way ; 
I just noted his rapid look over the field, at me, 
then at Eliot, at the swords, and at Cards. The 
expression changed a bit. Once more he looked, 
— at Cards, at the swords, at Eliot, at me. I 

met the gaze straight He had fought a duel 

himself. The sharp edge in his old eyes melted 
away as he held my look. “ Nearer,” he mo- 
tioned to his negro, who panted and sweated 
with the run. My father still leaned against 
the rock, fighting for breath and speech. Uncle 
Charles was the only member of the new group 
able to use his tongue; and I noted with sur- 
prise that the slight paralytical halt had vanished 
from it. “ Stop, Tom,” — this to my father, who 
made mien to join us, — “ stay there and blow. 
Stop, I tell thee. This is my affair. I own this 
quarry. — Get thy breath. — Now, boys ! What’s 


158 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


all this ? Who stole my swords ? What are 
you doing?” 

“ An affair of honour, sir,” said Waltham 
Eliot, but not too glibly. 

“ An affair of . . . what depravity ! ” My father 
was getting wind. 

“ Bosh, Tom ! Speak fair. It’s no depravity ; 
it’s a pair of young fools, — eh, you rascals ? ” 
I never wavered from a glance straight into 
Uncle Charles’s eye ; there was an odd kind of 
dance in it, which I feed and retained at once 
as my attorney for the pending investigation. — 
“ Tom, I’ll settle this end of things,” he went on. 
“ Docked pay and rations later. I command on 
the field. Now , — you! Were you going to 
fight in earnest, — cut, slash, eh ? Do you know 
that those things can hurt? What is all this 
mess ? ” 

I was about to answer Heaven knows what, 
when another interruption occurred. Shoulder- 
ing in past Linsey Cards, who now stood dis- 
creetly in the background, came Dighton Perry, 
the strangest look of horror and disgust upon his 
face, changing to relief as he spied the principals 
of the affair unhurt ; then — ah, ye gods ! Helen 
of Troy herself, pale with terror and her run, 
leaning on her Virginian cousin, dark-haired, sal- 
low, serious George Clayton, just arrived from 
West Point. 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


159 


This audience was too large for the speech 
which Uncle Charles had planned to make us, 
and it probably saved us some more direct refer- 
ence to the cause of contention; at any rate he 
showed signs of disgust. “ How did you come 
here?” he queried of Dighton Perry. “Nice 
tryst ! ” 

“Well,” said the good uncle, mopping his 
face, “ I suppose that idiot will send the whole 
country here ! ” 

“ What idiot ? ” I made bold to ask, in my un- 
quenchable Heigh thirst for facts. “ What 
idiot ? ” 

“Why, Jake Streepser, of course. You sent 
him, Cards? Yes? Well, it was a wise man’s 
errand. These two boys belong in jail, — and 
you in the White House, Cards ! ” 

George Clayton of Virginia took a long look 
at the wise second ; then turned to my Uncle 
Charles. Their eyes met. Dighton Perry iterated 
his emotion and thanks. 

“Yes, you have done us a great service, Cards. 
What might I not have had to telegraph Boston 
way ? ” . 

He shuddered ; and Waltham Eliot and I were 
not far from the same employment, as Linsey 
Cards told his brief story. He had seen Jake 
skulking behind a tree as we passed the spring, 
and by the excuse for water had gained time to 


160 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


send the lad on the errand of betrayal. “ It 
seemed the only thing to do,” he said, « though 
they ” — with a melancholy glance at us — “ will 
not thank me for it.” 

“ But they shall thank you for it, — one of them 
at any rate.” My sire came forward with omi- 
nous frown ; yet even his speech was destined to 
be unspoken. “ Go to Halifax, Tom,” cried my 
Uncle Charles. “ The court-martial is my busi- 
ness. — Don’t cry, Kriemhild, dear. — Boys ! ” 

We stood before his chair already, but he 
beckoned us closer. 

“ Give me my swords. So. — Here.” His ser- 
vant took the weapons with great reverence and 
laid them down behind the vehicle. “ Come 
here, — young fools ! Come here.” 

We couldn’t possibly go any closer to him. 

He looked at us with a queer expression, and 
pulled his white moustache with a hand that now 
began to quiver a little in the old way. But his 
voice was all right. “ Affair of honour, eh ? Do 
you know you are two precious idiots ? Eh ? ” 

“ Yes, sir. That is, — why, no, sir.” This was 
not happy, and Eliot looked very mournful over 
his frustrated eloquence. I had simply assented 
with a nod, and kept my gaze steady. 

“Well, my young whirlwind from Massa- 
chusetts, do you know ‘ honour ’ from a hill of 
beans ? ” 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


161 


“ The lie was passed, sir.” 

“ Ho ! Boys lie all the time. And steal , — too. 
Steal ! What about my swords ? ” 

We both investigated geological formations in 
the bed of the quarry. 

“Look straight at me.” 

Four eyes were fixed upon him, and he seemed 
to like the experience ; his own glance reminded 
me of the assumed ferocity which preceded a 
particularly liberal gratuity on some festal occa- 
sion of which my sire could not quite approve. 

“ Didn’t you think of your families, — of the 
people who cared for you and whom you would 
distress and almost kill by this folly ? ” 
Kriemhild sobbed again. We were silent. 
“Well, well, — you see. I must close the 
case, — and we’d best all go and get breakfast, 
— except you two. Now this foolish honour of 
yours, remember, is satisfied, and more. Under- 
stand ? — Here, George Clayton. Y ou’re an army 
man. I’m right, eh ? ” 

I think my Uncle Charles winked at him. 

« Quite right, Colonel Heigh, if you please.” 

“ Well ! Now, you young scoundrels Tom, 

Tom, govern that unruly member! Take the 
boy home and horsewhip him, — only there’ll be 
nothing of that sort done, if I know anything 
about it; just now it’s the pair here and this 
ridiculous duel ” 


162 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


“ Duel ! ” groaned my father. 

“Well, — what thee will. — Now, boys, on 
condition you do no more fighting — or stealing 

— and that you shake hands, yes, shake hands, 
and then go take your respective private floggings 

— eh, Perry ? — for nearly killing us all with 
fright, and making my pretty Kriemhild here 

cry away her prettiness for fifteen full minutes 

Come here, my dear ! Speak to these outcasts ! ” 

She made just a step or two forward ; but I 
noted the first glance that flashed toward us for 
just a second as it turned from Uncle Charles. 
It was not meant for me. Waltham Eliot was 
the man. She laid her hand on my good uncle’s 
shoulder and spoke to us with a steadier voice 
than one would have expected. 

“ Please shake hands,” she said. “ I like you 
both so Please.” 

“ Excellent speech ! ” cried my Uncle Charles, 
now fairly smiling a kind of shorthand at old 
Perry, “ and covers the whole ground.” He 
looked at my father, who ignored the tacit propo- 
sition to make a farce out of the affair, and 
yet offered no further interruption. His prac- 
tical mind was revolving plans to ship Master 
Eliot back to Boston, along with the tentative 
figures of a great largess for Linsey Cards. Digh- 
ton Perry, who hated a fuss, telegraphed accept- 
ance of the peace plan. Uncle Charles went on. 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


163 


“ Of course she likes you both Do you 

hear the lady, rascals ? Shake hands ! And 
will you agree to drop all this sputter and tom- 
foolery if I undertake — all right, Tom — that 
nothing serious shall come of the affair ? ” 

“ I do, sir.” 

“ All right, Uncle Charles.” 

“ Shake hands, then. So. — Amen. And a 
Quaker couldn’t fight, Master Waltham Eliot, eh ? 
Well, you see, he would, — the impudent young 
renegade. Til chastise him. Shake hands 

again, boys. I like to see you do it Right ! 

And now . . . Hallo, — what’s this f ” 

It was a rude fall to an even lower farce. 
Breathless with joy and his run, sent by my 
placid mother who, among her roses, knew noth- 
ing but that sire and son were keeping back 
breakfast unduly long, came my little cousin 
Billy. In my room he had found the fishing-pole, 
which he now carried with one hand ; the other 
held my testamentary card. “ Oh, thanks, 
Johnny, — thanks ! ” he bubbled out. “ Is it for 
next birthday ? ” — Even my father could not 
suppress a wan smile ; the other men roared. 
“Nemesis already,” cried Uncle Charles. He 
was in an unseemly cheerful mood ; kept whis- 
pering and nodding to my father ; and once 

actually poked Dighton Perry in the ribs 

« Cherchez la femme” I think was what he whis- 


164 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


pered. We were all in motion before my father 
could carry out certain stern intentions of segre- 
gation and reproof. — For me, I never knew 
common air to taste so sweet in the breathing of 
it ; and even Waltham Eliot, now the strain was 
off, seemed to harbour no wrath against our re- 
creant second who came to make his peace with 
us. “ It was my duty to Mr. Heigh,” said Cards. 

Waltham Eliot waved a general pardon. “ If 
you thought it right, of course ... / don’t look 

at things that way, no. But many a gentleman 
does. Yes, sir, you may believe me ; you and I 

are good friends ” Cards was delighted. He 

shook hands with the nobleman ; then turned to 
me with an expansive, cordial manner which 
nobody had ever marked in him before. My 
jocose mood prompted instead of handshake a 
feint or two of highly scientific boxing ; Cards 
and Eliot thought it very witty and admirable 
indeed. Then the peacemaker turned for another 
cordial grasp to George Clayton of Virginia. But 
the cadet folded his arms and made a stiff bow. 
“ I am glad there was no fight,” he said ; “ but I 
don’t like your way of acting second, sir.” 

Yes, it was long ago, long ago, all that. It 
seems more recent and more of yesterday’s affair, 
however, than the other scene that I remember 
quite as well, though six years came and went 


IDYLL OF THE FOUNDING 


165 


before a bigger fight cast that frustrated duel 
into the shade. A fine spring afternoon it was, 
I recollect, when the word went about that 
Kriemhild West and my friend were to be mar- 
ried within a month or so ; but I hardly heard the 
message, and heeded it even less. I was hurry- 
ing home, soon to stand, a great trembling lout, 
over my mother, who wept softly and looked at 
me through her tears, and kissed me, and wept 
again. Near by, my father, sometime man of 
peace, drummed on the window-ledge and said, 
yes, he was willing, — he was even half minded 
to go himself. Willing for what ? Minded to 
go whither? — You see, the brief idyll had fled 
for good and all, fled with many a kind old heart 
that my boyhood had known and with many an 
old fashion of life that swiftly passed away ; for a 
second April’s grass grew over my Uncle Charles, 
and the guns were roaring at Fort Sumter. 


Ill 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


















I 


Throw some more of that wood upon the fire, 
Eliot. — We can sleep all the forenoon; — you 
can. — It was the big hickory that stood in 
yonder field by the spring, you know ; sturdy 
old tree ; and every stick of it shall burn in the 
old house, for the old man, — and for you, my 
boy. It makes a brave light ; and I see you are 
watching how those crossed swords on the wall 
catch its ruddy flame. I wish I could write 
swords, young fellow, and put into this page all 
that the swords have to say to me when I sit 
here alone and smoke and gaze at them by the 
hour. I have made epics of them. And now 
the epic is upon us indeed ; the idyll is over and 
gone. An epic, I know, ought to roll with long 
hexameters like billows, ought to echo the quick- 
step of men hurrying into fight. 

“ I fear epics are a lost art, Major.” 

Doubtless. But I lived through one ; try to 
live it over with me. Look in this desk : old 

diaries, old letters, scraps of newspaper Let 

me deploy these dingy photographs. Look, too, 
at this ridiculous Colt’s revolver ; it tells me of 
169 


170 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


battlefield, bivouac, long night-rides. — But have 
no fear, Eliot. You shall be delivered from the 
personally conducted narrative and the mock 
modesty of an “ I ” novel, and henceforward I 
shall sing very small indeed ; the psalms of 
John, son of Thomas, are ended. But you must 
hear the tramp of the regiments again, as I 
can hear it, and feel the throb of our hearts, as 
we pressed hot upon that fiery column of patriot- 
ism which led us into the long struggle, and 
which we followed with such tumultuous hope. 
That is to say, three of us followed it ; one did 
not. 

Linsey Cards never told any one what my 
father had said to him in a colloquy which took 
place behind closed doors after that frustrated 
duel ; it remained a mysterious thing ; but when 
I came to settle the paternal estate, I found a 
memorandum for August, 1855, “ to account of 
gratitude,” and the stub of a cheque for five hun- 
dred dollars in favour of “ L. A. C.” Did Cards 
insist on a loan ? Or was he with honest Bar- 
tholo of the play : a la bonne heure , je le garde ? 
In any case he showed an affectionate reverence 
for my father which left nothing to be desired, 
and which took in the fulness of time sundry 
practical forms of service not to be forgotten by 
the house of Heigh. But the gratuity was pock- 
eted ; and what did he do with it ? Aha ! Did 


THE EPIO OF THE FOUNDING 


171 


I tell you how Waltham Eliot had talked with 
him of Harvard College? Well, one fine day in 
that fine September of ’55, Linsey Cards, uncon- 
sidered but useful pawn in the commercial game 
of the great house headed by my maternal uncle, 
stood up boldly before his master and laid bare 
his intention to “ get an education.” This pawn, 
now discovered to have quite useful qualities, 
was minded to call for whatever privileges went 
with any piece in the game. At any rate, he 
left us for long years. My maternal uncle raged ; 
my father was mildly disappointed ; Kriemhild 
West paraded an aristocratic indifference; George 
Clayton, who had taken his own measure of 
Cards, thought he « belonged with the Yankees 
and my Uncle Charles opined that we were 
likely to have an open winter. My Uncle 
Charles, indeed, never took heartily to the found- 
ling ; and only showed interest in his fate when 
we narrated the story of his strenuous year at 
the fitting-school down East and of his due matric- 
ulation at Harvard as classmate and friend of 
Waltham Eliot. — “ Harvard, eh ?” said my Uncle 
Charles ; “ and Eliot, too ! ” Then he quoted 
something about Cards and a gaUre, — what- 
ever he meant. Among our neighbours there 
was considerable gossip over Cards until the 
panic of ’57 gave us all something else to mind. 
People told how his only heirloom was an 


m 


THE 'SOUSE OF CASUS 


ancient ambrotype, hard to see plainly, showing 
a snappy young woman in too candidly “ best ” 
clothes, and a young man, in gorgeous waistcoat, 
clinging gingerly to his hat, a fine-featured, in- 
effectual fellow with smooth face and wavy, 
poetic hair, as of George the Fourth turned vir- 
tuous and shy. And I, for my part, told how 
Cards used to blaze out now and then about his 
father’s wrongs, — hidden fire that few had sus- 
pected. The world, he said, had kicked the loyal, 
hopeful enthusiast first up into an attic, then, 
more mercifully, down and out into his grave. 
Cards took, it seemed, the iron will from his 
mother, and from his father a play of imagina- 
tion and an outlook for the possible which are 
so serviceable everywhere save in the paths of 
sentiment and on the barren ways of poetry ; 
the simplicity, the trustfulness, the unschooled 
enthusiasm for ideals, — these the son buried 
with their victim six good feet under the sod. — 
And all these things we began to remember in 
the reticent, bashful boy when once reports of 
his astonishingly successful career reached us 
from Boston Bay. 

Boston and Cambridge, indeed, were never to 
be persuaded that Cards had been in the re- 
motest degree bashful or reticent in any respect 
save in the reticenoe of latent abilities. Friends 
of his in that college life divide it into two 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


173 


periods, passing into a third at graduation : one, 
something cocky, clamorous, insistent, filled with 
a new sense of power, a new conviction of equal- 
ity with all the world, and a pride of indepen- 
dence due to ample funds gradually accumulated 
by vacations spent in hard work under a Boston 
banker ; the other, a period of portentous silences, 
unnecessary spaces between words, accompanied 
by an uncanny habit of fixing his gaze sternly on 
the interlocutor’s face, and by a great intolerance 
of divergent opinion. He made huge successes 
in his college work, and superb failures, spurning 
whatever he deemed useless or obsolete. Of 
course he took the disease at that time so 
dreaded, and named with the harsh name of 
« infidelity ” ; the modern process of inoculation 
was not then common in the ranks of faith. 
He was aggressive in this article, a nuisance, as 
when at dinner in the Eliot mansion he remarked 
to a low-church Episcopalian guest that, sir, 
there are two logical positions, pope and sceptic, 
and anything, sir, between these two, any form 
of Protestantism, is but a wabbling and ineffec- 
tual futility. With his superfluous keenness of 
glance, and his habit of holding a brief silence 
before he answered questions, he was really a most 
formidable person for common social uses ; and 
yet he fancied that his elaborate employment of 
titles, sirs to excess, and his deferential way of 


174 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


picking one up in adverb after knocking one 
down with brutal substantive and verb, made 
him quite the easy gentleman. Occasionally a 
Philadelphian would return from Boston with 
some tale of this sort, and we could scarce be- 
lieve our ears, remembering shy Linsey Cards. 
“ Harvard College,” my Uncle Charles was wont 
to say, as some fresh anecdote came south, “ is 
indeed a great institution.” 

What saved Cards from the vulgar destiny of 
his breed? Well, that college itself, and the 
instinct in him for final best things ; above all, 
his friend, Waltham Eliot. They exchanged 
favours of this sort, I think, on fairly equal 
terms. Cards, a big, keen, intolerant man of 
action, took delight in weeding out Eliot’s 
bookish sayings, his mannerisms and poses, his 
preposterous assumption of the Brahminic 
perfection inherent in his tribe. Cards was a 
marked success in the college class, an athlete on 
occasion, a putter- through of wild schemes ; 
there was no disgrace in being chum to “ Roarer ” 
Cards. Chums the two were, for good and ill ; 
and they saw academic life together in all its 
phases save those of the positively vicious kind, 
hearing the Boston chimes at midnight, or, in 
half-rural flights, talking philosophy over a 
bowl of punch at Porter’s tavern. Both achieved 
the distinction of a temporary separation from 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


175 


scholastic privileges ; each finished his course, 
notwithstanding this breach, high up in rank. 
By senior year Eliot had lost his dandified 
ways one and all, while Cards was emerging 
from his two periods aforesaid into that combined 
energy of character and reticence of speech 
which still stamps his life. Together they made 
a fine pair, equals ; no longer Rollo and Jonas ; 
like the heroes of the nursery rhyme, they were 
indeed two pretty men. Once, late in the 
senior year, the two came our way, Eliot, of 
course, to Miss Patty’s at Roadside, — for the 
engagement was announced, — and Cards as 
guest of the Heighs. My father was at last 
justified of his foundling; “a fine young man,” 
he said, looking at me in the old suggestive way, 
“a fine promising man of business.” — “And 
what about Eliot ? ” quoth I. — “ Oh, — Waltham 
Eliot. Why, — very well; very well.” My father 
had many of the ancient Quaker ways. So 
had I. 

As they clutched their precious sheepskins at 
Commencement, and bowed their heads a mo- 
ment for the last word of the nursing mother 
before they went out as her favourite sons into 
the world, the keen imaginative eye of Cards 
saw a straight, steep path before him, leading 
to financial and commercial honours such as the 
country as yet had never known ; he saw noth- 


176 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


ing else, and he knew that he could reach his 
goal. Eliot’s gaze flitted over a more diversified 
landscape ; though the path was plain enough, 
it was crossed by pleasance-walks for the holiday, 
dotted with resting-places and prospects ; and 
under the shade of its trees and shrubbery he 
was to wander not alone. He saw, to be more 
explicit, a dignified young man winning golden 
opinions and fees at the Suffolk County bar ; a 
house on Beacon Street, not too remote from the 
ripples of Frog Pond, and ruled by the most 
charming hostess in Boston ; meetings of direc- 
tors at bank or mill-office ; and in the dim, 
purple distance, say of a quarter-century, this 
very Commencement scene, with himself as 
governor, taking his doctorate with an easy 
grace, while a younger Waltham harangued 
his duly attentive audience with that oratio 
summa cum laude which the sire had neglected 

to achieve These things the ardent youths 

saw in the folds of their diplomas ; and these 
things, as matter of actual life, they began to 
approach in most auspicious fashion, one in the 
Boston banking-house as confidential clerk and 
trusted agent for large affairs, the other in a 
great solicitor’s law-office as capable student, 
when, on a fine day of April, 1861, the dreams 
and the activities being at their cleverest, a 
sudden cloud of dust and powder-smoke shut 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


177 


out the whole future from view and stopped all 
work of the present : in his snug little private 
room now reeking with wildest patriotism, 
amid his neglected law-books, sat Waltham 
Eliot talking battle, murder, and sudden death 
with Linsey Cards. Just as if a liberal edu- 
cation went for nothing at all, here was Eliot, 
quite boy again, sure that it would have to be 
“ swords,” and here was Cards, as of the quarry, 
standing for compromise. At the same time, 
you remember, I was upon my own business, 
parting from mother and sire ; George Clayton 
was marching, with whatever wry face at the 
prospect of fighting fellow- Virginians, in his 
company of regulars under orders from old 
Scott. . . . Blow, trumpets of war, and thunder, 
O ye cannon of battle ; the epic at last begins I 
— I said one of us did not go to the war. It 
was . . . but listen to these two in eager dia- 
logue. 

« Settled ? Compromise ? ” — Master Eliot’s 
voice vibrates with scorn. “ Why, — hear those 
regiments marching off ! ” — One could indeed 
catch the sound of distant drum and fife ; now 
and then the tramp of feet. 

“ March them back again,” says Cards, heavily, 
“and save their fools’ skins.” 

“ Fools, eh ? Do you know that your esteemed 

N 


178 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


friend, your worthy arch and patron, Thomas 
Heigh, Heigh the elder, is reported to have been 
on the verge of enlistment ? ” 

“ Nonsense.” 

“Anyway, he sent off John with his blessing. 
John a fool, eh ? ” 

“ You say it. And to be killed for the politi- 
cians, — nice way to treat one’s friends. I urge 
mine to stay at home and play the man.” 

“ Play the man ! ” 

“ Yes. — Does — Cards let his enig- 

matic words find elucidation in the glance di- 
rected to a portrait prominent on Eliot’s desk. 

“Precisely. She does indeed.” — The thing 
was inevitable at three-and-twenty, and Eliot 
proudly quoted On Going to the Wars . . . . 

“ I salute Colonel Lovelace ! ” 

“ Underline Colonel, then, — and thanks. 
There was another Lovelace, with another ad- 
dress in the directory. He didn’t go to the 
wars.” 

“ Poetry — rhetoric — excitement ; all as usual, 
Waltham. Cool off, as you always do ; and come 
to reason, as you generally do.” 

“ I come to reason when there is any reason 
to come to. And there is none about your per- 
son to-day, Roarer. Be sure of that.” 

“ I suppose you would persuade me, then, to 
come over to your folly. — We are friends, I 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


179 


believe ; and generally go together, however we 
talk ourselves apart in argument.” 

Eliot stared at the man. If such a word as 
“ agitated ” could by any possibility be made to 
rhyme with Linsey Cards, it was now. 

“What are you nervous about, Lin ? You can 
hardly fill your pipe.” 

“ I can’t, eh ? ” Cards set his teeth, and 
achieved the operation in dispute about six 
inches from Eliot’s nose ; it was a characteristic 
performance. “Talk to the question,” he said 
imperiously, with an attempt at his curt, severe 
style, not quite successful. 

“ Of course.” Eliot smiled at his friend, who 
reddened a little under the smile ; he was detected 
in the act of sentimental weakness, and felt some- 
what as the travelling salesman felt whom I once 
saw in a smoking-car when a bachelor comrade 
pulled from its hiding-place a little toy wheel- 
barrow in broken paper wrappings; caught in 
sheer domesticity, this fellow of infinite sooty 
jest, this connoisseur of women who travel 
alone, growled out an oath. “ Drop it, will 

you ? ” he said. “ It’s for that little boy 

of mine.” So it went now with sagacious, 
hard-headed Cards ; he was caught in senti- 
ment, and what might not come after? — in 
Heaven’s name, not this absurd patriotism which 
had set the whole North crazy ! 


180 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


“The question, if you like,” said Eliot, “is 
whether I am right to enlist. Your action is 
not bound up in mine, however good friends we 
may be. Religion, love, war, are all individual 
matters, Lin. And you must admit, this is 
war ? ” 

Questions of fact were sacred with L. A. 
Cards. “Yes,” he said, “it’s war. You’ve 
chucked the fat into the fire. I wish you had 
to collect all Boston’s income for this year and 
the next in the shape of southern due-bills. — 
By the way ; did you buy cotton, as I told 
you? No? — Well, I did.” — Cards smiled 
grimly. — “Patriots, are you? Well, you are 
sending New England’s prosperity up a very 
tall tree.” 

“ Lin, you are hardening your heart. This 
commercial talk is bluff. You want me to 
exorcise the devil of trade, and I do it. Linsey 
Cards, I bid thee to enlist ! ” 

“ I’ll be hanged if I do, — or shot.” The man 
spoke with a strange indefiniteness, as if the 
humorous tone of his friend precluded a seri- 
ous reply. And he was evidently bent upon 
being serious. Suddenly he came up close to 
Eliot, big, towering over the sitter. 

“ You are going to enlist ? ” 

“ No doubt of it.” 

“ Well . , . Shall I ? I mean really .” 


THE EPIC OP THE FOUNDING 


181 


Eliot jumped to his feet. They two stood at 
close gaze for a good minute; and then Eliot 
spoke slowly and kindly. 

“ I didn’t expect such a surr . . . such a ques- 
tion. How can I answer, when you put it that 
way ? Hang it, this is like religion, — it’s un- 
canny. /can’t tell you what you ought to do, 
Lin.” 

“ Confound what I ought to do ! I know well 
enough what I ought to do. I ought to mind 
my business, — in every sense of the word.” 
He relented at the look in the eye of his friend, 
at the sympathetic shaking of head. “ See here. 

Sink argument. See here It’s not ought or 

might or should or would with me. It’s what 
you wish. Don’t interrupt. If any man calls 
me a foundling, a nobody, you know I’m ready 
to knock his teeth down his throat. And you 
also know that it’s true. Well. Think what I 
was out there in Philadelphia (I’ll go there one 
of these days and make a mark so big you can 
see it from here ! ) — think what I am now. 
You did it. You did it. You have always 
treated me on the level. I want to stay there, 
though you sink it now to worse than anything 
I ever was. You brought me up to heaven. 
Now you’re bound ... for the other place. A 
poor excursion, yes ; but I’ll not desert. The 
logic is nothing. You’re a fool to go, a fool; 


182 


THE HOUSE OP CARDS 


it’s all bargaining over a dead horse, and no war 
was ever so silly, so useless. But I don’t back 
down. I have precisely one friend in the world. 
Does that friend ask me to go with him ? ” 

“Yes and no.” 

“ Come, come ! ” 

“ You know what I mean. Yes, if you think it 
your duty. If you only enlist because I do, no.” 

“ Tough ! ” 

“ Sense ! Do you feel it to be your duty ? ” 

Cards walked to the window, came back, 
looked hard at Eliot, and said slowly : “No, 
sir. No. I do not.” Then he went back to the 
window. Presently he laughed aloud. “ Write 
a novel about us. Yardstick and Sword will 
do ; or The Count and the Discount. — Opening 
chapter. — ‘ Two boys are playing together, — 
playing stick-knife. One, an ignoble, plebeian, 
but sturdy little brat, with teeth actually in the 
earth, is drawing from its place a stick driven in 
deep by his fair-haired, blue-eyed aristocratic play- 
mate. “ Nothing ,” cries the latter, “ nothing could 
make me do that , Higgins .” — And “ Ah” replies 
the other, touching his cap in spite of the recum- 
bent posture, “ Ah, Reginald de Courcy, it would be, 
indeed, impossible for you ” ’ In the sequel, Regi- 
nald dies saving the life of a thieving drunkard, 

— and Higgins keeps the knife Don’t shake 

your head so much. It’s turned enough now.” 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


183 


“ Lin, Lin ! — Come, give me your honest view 
of the situation. You have reasons for not 
enlisting; and I shall respect them, just as I 
respected your doings at the old quarry. You 
don’t rhyme with fear , Lin ; I know that. In 
fact, in the temper now abroad, it asks less 
courage to go to the front than to stay at 
home. I go, not for the shouting, but for my 
good reasons. What are yours for staying ? ” 

“ Plain ones. I admit a heap of political 
rubbish in the house. Wheel it off and burn 
it, I say ; you say, set fire to the house. Hang 
it all, Eliot, what are you going to fight about ? 
To free the slaves, — that is what it will come 
to ; little as you think it, you are playing into 
the hands of a few abolitionists. Waltham, my 
boy, put up five men, North here, like you, and 
five Southerners of the same stamp : I tell you, 
the whole mess of niggers from Virginia to Florida 
won’t weigh down you ten men ! Let . . .” 

— “ Major ! ” 

“ Eh ? — I thought you nigh asleep.” 

“ Not at all. But wasn’t Friend Cards pretty 
nearly right ? ” 

“ Are you a democrat, after all ? A rank 
copperhead ? ” 

“ Oh, I don’t mean about the fighting. I’ll be 
wrong there with Plato, and my uncle, — who, 


184 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


by the way, is getting worth while — and you, 
rather than be right with Cards. — But he was 
right about the negroes. And pardon my 
interruption ! — ” 

Let me see, then. Oh ! Well, Cards is talking, 
isn’t he ? Well, he went on to show that it was 
a nasty situation for the North ; but self-control 
would pay. “ Let the other states secede ; 
Virginia will stay with us. We’ll develop the 
West, build up our factories, and, on the quiet, 
get ready for war if it has to come at last. 
The South can’t do without us ; they’ll be sick, 
and we shall be sound, within these five years, 
— and they’ll all come back to be spanked and 
forgiven ! Now, though ! Where’s our army ? 
Where are the best generals ? All South. Tem- 
porize, as wise men have to do. Our arms are 
our mills, our railroads, our wheat and corn out 
West. Put up the rotten muskets, and keep the 
ploughs going. We are growing that way, and 
one of these days we shall be feeding half 
Europe. Our campaign is patience ” 

“ Too late,” interrupted Eliot. “ How can the 
North help fighting now ? ” 

Cards climbed out of his oratorical car, ruefully 
enough ; he saw his friend was flint. 

“Help fighting? I suppose not. I suppose 
our talk is academic, after all. Let’s see.” He 
took up an Advertiser . “Loan of 1881,” he 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


185 


muttered as his trained eye ran down the finan- 
cial column ; “ ah, the six per cents. Yes. 
Dropped to 84-|. Yes, the war is on. Whose 
war ? Don’t you know how to succeed in busi- 
ness ? Back your own opinion when the crowd 
goes wrong. It’s not your war.” 

“ I don’t say its yours. And I respect your 
motives. Hang it all, boy, — do justice to the 
justice I do you ! ” 

“ Well, thanks for that. I might as well tell 
you there is a nigger in my woodpile to match 
your blameless Ethiopian on the battlefield. 
Here. I’ve a letter from Olcutt in New York, — 
and you know Olcutt was the brains of our 
house. He’s cut loose now, and scents the big 
game, going to Europe as ‘fiscal agent,’ loan- 
maker, buyer of supplies, Heaven knows what 
not and where not, but assuredly where the good 
money is flying. He’s the Man in Macedonia 
the Bible talks about, and he calls to me to 
come over and help him. I . . .” 

“ Oh ! Fine ! Just the thing for . . .” 

“ Let me finish. He can’t talk German ; and 
I can, — thanks to that little shoemaker of my 
youth. Germany is our place for arms and 
loans.” 

Eliot sprang again to his feet from the profes- 
sional arm-chair. Cards forced him back. 

“ Sit there. Now. Say the word I want to 


186 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


hear, my boy. Say that one word, Waltham, 
and this letter flies to the deuce, and you and I 
go soldiering together. Together. Now. Ask 
me to go.” 

Eliot smiled up at the eager eyes above him 
and once more shook his head. 

“You are bed-rock to-day, youngster. Did 
you learn the trick from me ? ” 

“ Be rock yourself, as always, — this time gold- 
bearing quartz. Go with Olcutt. You can do 
more over there in a day for the good cause than 
I and a dozen like me can do in a year. Saul 
will slay his — man perhaps, and David his tens 
of thousands. David, go in. It’s a clear case.” 

“ What regiment, — yours ? ” 

Eliot named it and added a confidence ; he 
was to be a second-lieutenant in his company. 
“ I have fooled a little, you know, with soldiering 
and drill.” 

“ Clayton ? ” 

“ Off with his regulars. Poor chap ! He 
promised his father, dead these four years and 
an old-line Whig, that he’d stay by the Union ; 
but his whole kin will be in the other army. 
Besides . . .” 

« Well?” 

“ Between us, my engagement hits him hard. 
— Poor old chap ! ” 

“ John Heigh another victim ? ” 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


187 


" Oh, — hardly. No, no. Boy and girl. . . . 
But we’ll change the subject. The army is not 
made up of disappointed lovers, nor are the ranks 
of finance. Eh, Lin ? ” 

Cards made no answer. He sat down; and 
they both smoked in silence. A small squad 
of soldiers, with drum and fife, marched past 
the open window. . . . 

“ And you won’t ask me to go with you ? ” 

“ Stuff, Lin. Do your duty as you see it.” 

“ So I will.” Cards knocked out his pipe on 
the coals of a dying fire, straightened himself, and 
then reached for his hat. The quick rattle of 
the war-music echoed into silence. “ So I will,” 
he said again. “ Good-bye, Eliot. I shall see you 
to-night at dinner.” 


II 


When those three fishers went sailing out into 
the west, oblivious of the signs of storm noted by 
the three wives, there was doubtless one other 
fisher at least who made his boat snug and 
walked quietly home to weed his garden. In 
any case, I know that three fools went to the 
war, and one wise man listened to his own 
wisdom. Fools we were, but a glorious kind of 
fool ; and if I had the skill, I could talk of Red- 
Cross Knights and Satyrans and Guyons and the 
rest, although, were Spenser to tell the tale of us 
now, I think his allegory would try for local 
colour and paint one Bellona and her friend 
Pallida Mors at a bargain-counter marked by 
this sign : “ Fools in Assorted Sizes.” Such a 
sign hung along our coast, in those early days, 
from Maine to Florida. For then, you see, it 
was worth while to play the fool, since at the 
start we waged a fool’s war; later came the 
politicians, the contractors, and took it up ; and 
ghosts of men slain in useless battles, mothers 
with red eyes, too, stalked through our dreams. 
The dirty fortunes made by politics and knavery 
188 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


189 


in sweet conjunction did not mend matters for 
us, as we wore out our shoddy coats and trod 
through our paper-soled shoes, and looked north- 
ward, from those familiar Virginia fields stained 
with the blood of comrades, at patriots of the 
lobby and the mill. But the first of it, boy, 
the first of it was the best, when high-hearted 
youngsters, resolute men, rejuvenated veterans, 
all left mother, wife, sweetheart, children, waved 
a hardy farewell, tumbled into awkward ranks, 
and marched quickstep to Bull Run. 

“ Bravo, Major ! That’s epic for a fact ! ” 

Well, make what you can of it. You’ll get 
no battlefields. What little I remember of the 
close fighting I am trying hard to forget, — indeed 
I am. General Slasher, now in Congress, will be 
glad to see you any night at the club, and will 
outwatch the bear, and outdo the boar, and 
make you miss the train, with his anecdotes 
now of serious and now of comic hue. That 
depends on what you drink. You will roar over 
the dish of crow served as fricasseed chicken ; you 
will hold your breath as the general and his brave 
boys sweep up the hill and take the battery ; you 
will weep noble tears over Andersonville and the 
dead-line and the poor fellows that rolled out 
for the blessing of a quick bullet. . . . And you 
will, of course, vote for General Slasher and his 
record, unvaried by any other legislative efforts, 


190 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


of bills for the highest possible tariff and for 
pensions all around. I give no tales of battle; 
and I ask no votes. It hurts me to say much 
about those days ; like little Peterkin, I begin 
to wonder what it was all about, and why so 
many fine fellows had to die that General 
Slasher might dispense his country’s charity with 
such magnificence. But I will tell, because I 
must, the simple story of Eliot and Clayton 
and myself, — and of Cards. Somehow, it has 
a constant refrain like the nursery song, this tale 
of mine, and speak of whom it will, returns al- 
ways to one theme — this is the house that Cards 
built . As I figure the matter, that is, after all, 

why we went to war 

Oh, but he was a soldier through and through, 
your Uncle Waltham ! Read the Rebellion Record 
yonder. Read the history of his famous regi- 
ment. The root of the matter was in him, 
verily ; and as soon as guns began to bark, 
and pickets came driven in, and louts like me 
undertook simply to shove themselves into the 
obvious place and do obvious things, this Har- 
vard sport kept a cool head over his hot heart, 
watched the game while he fought, anticipated, 
dared, refused, — you know the kind. After 
Bull Run they made him major in one of the 
new Massachusetts regiments. He had the drill- 
ing of it, and took it at last to the front; and 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


191 


enjoyed a bit of fun withal, so the family records 
will show you, as he passed through Philadelphia 
southward. There was a rude shack down Broad 
Street in those days, close to the old Baltimore 
station, where our women used to feed the 
soldiers ; every regiment stopped there for a 
meal cooked by the cleverest matrons and served 
by the comeliest maidens of our city. It was 
better than picking lint, the girls were wont to 
say. Eliot’s regiment took the place of another 
at the last moment, and so he had no time to 
arrange for a tender meeting. But there was a 
surprise. The tale has been told me by Abner 
R. Slocum, then a raw private, from South 
Framingham. Major Eliot was very busy ; he 
had disposed of his men, and the luncheon was 
in full progress ; now, standing close to Abner 
and watching the soldiers, hundreds feeding like 
one, he was startled to hear a “ Gosh ! ” of plain 
amazement from the sagacious but reticent 
Yankee. Abner, with suspended sandwich, was 
looking with wide eyes toward a near corner of 
the corridor where the company had stacked its 
arms. Heedless of a pacing sentry, some young 
woman — Abner called her “ all-fired handsome ” 
— had approached, picked up a musket, weighed 
it, sighed, smiled, and at last took simulated aim 
at a rebel. The major, alarmed by Abner’s 
mighty oath, and following Abner’s gaze, saw 


192 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


dimly this proceeding and rushed out in wrath. 
“ Silly children ! ” he muttered ; and then aloud : 
“ I beg pardon, — but . . .” The young person 
turned swiftly around. “ Salute properly your 
superior officer ! ” she cried. « Aha ! ” shouted 
the transformed major, — “ that I will.” — Those 
were not days of intricate social ceremony or of 
misplaced shyness ; nobody, save Abner, was look- 
ing; and there sounded out as noble a kiss as 
ever marked the concussion of chivalry and 
beauty. “ Gosh ! ” remarked once more the man 
from South Framingham. 

An hour more, and the train bore away that 
regiment to Virginia ; you know its history, — 
always at the front, always first in attack, al- 
ways covering the sullen retreat ! But in fact we 
were all at the front now, all in Virginia ; and we 
lingered there a long while, with Maryland and, at 
last, Pennsylvania, for occasional change of scene, 
— Eliot, Clayton, and I. What we were doing, 
as I have already told you, you can read in the 
chronicles and in the recollections and in the 
tremendous historical novel. But Cards, who 
had always cherished an idea of improving his 
mind by foreign travel, and who, as you know, 
had a House to found, went off to Germany ; 
wisdom, in his case, is justified of her children, 
as she is of the poet who told us long ago that 
“ sundry schools make subtle clerks.” 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


193 


From the Chronicles of the House, to be pub- 
lished, I hope, one of these days, I venture to 
take a little chapter which may go under the 
title of the Battle of Windenbad. Peace hath 
her victories, and this was one of them — for 
Cards. Whenever I look over yonder at the 
great house itself, the house in stone, and think 
of the master of it, — his word enough to set mill- 
ions jumping about in all the banks of the world, 
— then I feel, how insignificant were our own 
poor doings, our blundering marches and coun- 
termarches, our silly battles and slaughters, down 
on the peninsula and about the James. What a 
pitiful business we made of it, to be sure ! At 
Antietam we just managed to save our little 
skins, and the great Union skin in the bargain. 
... At the club, once or twice, I have noted this 
fact in connection with our subsequent national 
career, and have insisted that it was after all a 
fast-shrinking peau de chagrin that we saved ; 
and General Slasher confides in a hoarse whisper 
that Heigh’s daffy — “ daffy as a coot.” . . . No, 
these were not victories. It was Cards who 
fought with unbroken triumph ; and I am to 
tell you now of his battle of Windenbad. 

Negotiating loans, buying military supplies, 
dickering and dining, dining and dickering, and 
always smoking those pet, fat, black cigars, the 
excellent Olcutt, as one no longer blessed with 


194 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


the bloom of youth, went wrong in his stomach. 
He laid his distress to the smell of German cab- 
bages. It took, in his physician’s view, a pleas- 
ingly miscellaneous form of gout ; and the 
leeches indicated a prolonged cure at this ro- 
mantic watering-place which I call, for fear of 
detection, Windenbad. Here he drank the ac- 
cursed waters, and swore freely, as was his wont, 
while Cards did all the work. Cards did it with 
silent and almost uncanny perfection. One day 
he came back to the baths with certain large 
things sweepingly accomplished. Olcutt forgot 
to swear. “ Well done,” he said ; and then, being 
a judge of faces, discovered something he had not 
seen before in his respected understudy. There 
was the same square jaw ; the black moustache 
drooped as always over a straight mouth ; the eyes 
were as keen as ever, — but all with a difference. 

“ Cards, I wish I had your command of this 
lingo. I wish I had your digestion. And I 
begin to wish I had your . . . Well. Business, 
eh ? To-morrow you’re going . . 

“ Pardon me. . . 

“ Eh ? ” 

Financial eyeglasses, whose deliberate adjust- 
ment had been wont to set clerks in a shiver, 
now only served to bring out more clearly the 
jaw, the mouth, the eyes, — and the something 
more “ Eh ? ” 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


195 


“ I think I shall go back to America. You 
can easily fill my place. Any clerk, you 
know. . . .” 

“ Clerk ! Oh, come ! ” 

“ Dent is in Berlin now. Dent is a very 
steady, good man.” 

Olcutt exploded, cursing Dent heartily, and 
adding quite irreverent remarks about his own 
stomach and the general economy of nature, as 
a wave of distress assailed him. Cards, after a 
respectful pause, went on. 

“ These defeats, sir. I am a strong man and 
young ; men like me are needed at the front. 
My friends are there, — if they’re not killed. 
And so . . .” 

“ Look here ! ” Olcutt made an energetic 
change of posture, followed by great dolour in 
his visage, and a complicated oath. “ I’d trade 
my digestion for a rebel cotton-bond,” he said, 
putting the remark as a personal and valuable 
confidence to Cards. Then he whistled a weird, 
dissolute tune between his teeth, looked over the 
pretty hills, looked back at Cards, and began to 
speak in fragments of no open coherence, but 
plain in the underlying drift of thought. 

“Enlist? You? — Rubbish!... But how can 

I? — Something, — yes Yes, of course. I 

always meant, — ultimately, you know ; ulti- 
mately.” — The word had a soothing effect. 


196 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


“ Ultimately, of course. No, Cards, there isn't 
much in it now for you. — Well, you must come 
into the game.” 

“ Mr. Olcutt, you are wrong, sir, if you 
think . . .” 

Olcutt stared ; then pulled himself together. 
He remembered that Cards never trusted in 
what we have since learned to call “ bluff ” ; and 
he rose to the level of a serious conversation. 

“ No, Cards, I don’t think that , — now. I 
know what you mean. You have letters from 
home, as I have ; and you remember, as I do, 
that you are an American of the North with a 
heart and a soul in you. That’s all right. You 
have a letter, I suppose, from that fine young 
friend of yours, with the pretty JiancSe, — Eliot, 
Eliot. Yes. And you are cut up. But see here. 
You settled all that a year ago ; and you settled 
it wisely. The situation is acute ; but no prem- 
ises have changed; and while I respect your 
patriotism, I tell you plainly that what really 
cuts you up is your sense of responsibility and 
work out here without authority . . . and profit. 
Spades are trumps, Cards ; let’s not talk about 
hearts. And I call the spade by its name. You 
are sore about all this work ; and you show your 
sense. Look at me, — though, by the lord Harry, 
young chap, you’ve been doing nothing else for 
half an hour. Not as handsome as I used to be, 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


197 


eh ? — Cards, I’ll make it halves on the personal 
end ! ” 

Cards smoked fast. 

“ It’s all square,” Olcutt went on, “ square as 
such things ever are. The government isn’t 
compromised, and doesn’t lose. Oh, it’s square.” 

The two men smiled a little, wan, twin smile. 

“ But we are just where the gentle rain falls 
from heaven by night, and the sweet sun shines 
by day, and we may as well put out our dashed 
little flower-pots. You haven’t any flower-pots, 
— to speak of. Take half of mine ; and tend 
’em all. That’s my offer, Cards. Put up or 
draw out. I’m a sick man and can’t dicker by 
the hour as I could once. Take five minutes, — 
or two ; and say your Yes loud.” 

As Cards had come out upon the pleasant 
piazza of their hotel, he had passed a well-known 
picture in one of the rooms ; it showed the women 
of Prussia bringing their gold wedding-rings for 
the war of liberation and taking rings of iron 
instead ; a boy, too, was reciting to his invalid 
father, an officer, Was ist des Deutschen Vater- 
land f And now, of all things in the world, the 
band of the place, mindful of Olcutt’s tremen- 
dous tips, was doing him honour by playing what 
it conceived to be our American national hymn. 
Cards glanced from the Kursaal and the band 
out over the pine-covered Thuringian hills ; a 


198 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


red sun was sinking westward. And the band 
still crashed out its rude but effective tune of 
occidental patriotism. — I think this was a very 
critical moment for the House of Cards. Olcutt 
thought something of the sort, too, and narrowly 
watched his man. 

“ There are fools and fools, Cards. The big- 
gest fool I know is the one who mixes business 
and sentiment. Don’t mind the music. Think 
it’s Money Musk , — and look at something solider 
than a sunset. — Take the worst of it. — Any of 
your friends killed yet ? ” 

“ Eliot had a very close shave.” 

“ Ah. Saving your friendship, there’s one of 
the grand sentimental fellows ; he’ll go down some 
fine day, waving his sword, falling in front of 
the line, bullet through her photograph into his 
heart. No, hear me out. You’ll be sorry for 
him. So shall I, in my way. Harvard College 
will shiver — and there will be a pretty woman 
for somebody to console. Brutal, I know ; but 
what is all that for ? Why, for this infernal 
nonsense of a war (whisper it, of course) that 
fifty men like you and me, with any luck, could 
have averted ! Shall we, too, go blind with sen- 
timent? Hadn’t we better stay above ground 
and set things to rights when we can ? Look at 
that side. — Ah, another tune ! Bravo, band ! 
What is it ? And what is your word ? ” 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


199 


The band was indeed now playing something 
about love and wine, a flattering thing ; Cards 
knew that tune all the rest of his life, but never 

found out the name An Englishman, evidently 

on his wedding tour, and his handsome young 
wife, came glowing in from a sharp walk in the 
woods. ... The garden was filling up with peo- 
ple, and waiters began to bustle about, arrang- 
ing tables in the soft air under the trees. “ I’ve 
ordered,” said Olcutt, irrelevantly, “the very 
finest trout for supper that you ever saw; got 
’em out of the little basin by the brook back 
there. Good scheme, isn’t it ? And a bit of 

venison. Choose your own wine Come, 

Cards, time’s long since up. How is it ? ” 

“ Done,” said Cards. 

He had won his battle. Olcutt, curiously 
enough, always claimed it as his victory ; “ but, 
by Jove, sir, for a dozen seconds, I thought it 
was lost ! ” 


Ill 


And now the fates, urged, shall we say, by 
-Bellona and by Mercury, picked out these two 
men, marked them, and forced them to the front 
of things in earnest. When we discussed not 
generals, to be sure, but capable and rising offi- 
cers, Eliot’s name was on our lips first as well as 
last ; when financial authorities in and out of 
government talked over the chances of the day, 
it was seldom that the phenomenal young worker 
over there in Germany did not come to the fore 
of conversation and the focus of favourable proph- 
ecy. They were not in the papers, in the public 
eye, as yet ; but they were marked men for those 
inner councils of the military and the financial 
world. Each of them was patriot and true 
sportsman to the core, standing manfully to the 
game, whatever odds rose against him. And 
high enough did the odds rise with the crisis, 
with Gettysburg, — so much bewritten, I begin 
to doubt that it was ever fought ; and lo, both 
of these my heroes plunged with equal despera- 
tion into the campaign, one with his sword and 
200 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


201 


his last pound of energy and skill, the other with 
his last rag of credit. And they won. 

Supreme moments of experience are rarely 
remembered in themselves, but rather in their 
concomitants and results. When I think of 
Gettysburg impersonally, and that is never in 
times of the east wind, it is not the roar of 
cannon that I hear and the sweep of Pickett’s 
men up that long slope that I can see, but it is 
the groans of wounded men for my dull old ears 
and the faces of the slain for my memorial sight, 
the reeking field, and the moan of loss that went 
up over all the land, — that is my Gettysburg. 
What sacrifices for our ideal ! And how near 
that same ideal to disaster and extinction ! A 
sundered nation, a divided people ; impotent con- 
clusion for South as well as North ! Here and 
there a scholar, bending over his Horace, and 
old enough or far enough away to feel a certain 
detachment of' patriotism which could cover the 
larger issue, sighed to think of Europe in a 
grim delight at occidental troubles and wait- 
ing for the final crash, the Hesperiae sonitum 

ruinae We nursed our wounded and we buried 

our dead, and then went back, when we could, 
to our business at home or on the picket-lines. 
Cards missed all that, though he loves to speak 
of Gettysburg. “ Look at it,” he says, “ merely 
as a business proposition, — what a sweep it 


202 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


was ! It saved the Union ; it baffled that fox of 
a third Napoleon ; it kept England neutral ; it 
reelected Lincoln ; it . . .” 

Here I fall into Cards’s eloquence with some 
of my own. “ It made Waltham Eliot colonel 
of regulars, and it gained you, Cards, first and 

last, a cool million 0 well for Gettysburg 

indeed ! Leeze me on Gettysburg ; let me have 
a siller tassie and a pint of wine, son of the 
Lindsays, to pledge that day ! But for Gettys- 
burg, where we fought and bled, there would be 
no House of Cards ; worse yet, Elbert-Kelley 
would have no castle, no hyphen ; and his ven- 
erated grandsire, founder of the line, would have 
gone to his grave under a pile of unsold and un- 
salable army-blankets. O well for. Gettys- 
burg ! ” People wonder why Cards, when I say 
this, only shrugs his shoulders and grins, instead 
of pitching me out of his house. If the question 
is put to him, he tells how I lost half my pro- 
motion after the battle for speaking my mind 
plain and clear to a state politician. « Let old 
John growl,” says Cards ; “ he has no enemy but 
himself.” 

Probably I do growl a bit too much ; and cer- 
tainly I have put more gloom into the last pages 
than I ought to have done. It is the retrospect, 
I suppose, through foul vapours of reconstruction ; 
in point of fact, those long weeks that followed 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


203 


the battle, when Clayton and Eliot and I were 
on furlough and free to breathe the sharp air of 
the hills, made as happy a time, for at least two 
of us, as we had ever known. Let me recover 
the mood. 

They told me Lee was retreating over the 
Potomac with his wonted skill, and our army 
was lumbering after him in the dear old way ; 
they whispered, nodded, shook the head, as I 
asked for comrade after comrade ; I must go to 
sleep again, they insisted, lie quiet and take the 
little dose. “ Eliot ? ” I replied. 

“ Look over there, then, if you must.” I was 
propped up a moment by pillows ; following 
the gesture, I saw him across the room, a smile 
flickering over his white face. “ Remember the 
quarry ? ” he called feebly ; and as feebly, but 
with the inveterate jocosity of us Heighs, I sent 
back something about the arrival of our families 
too late to stop the fight. “ Cards wasn’t here,” 
I said. I just heard that “ Old Linsey is all right,” 
and then, from another voice, that the point now 
was to make Waltham and John, dear boys, all 
right, — when I lost my line of communication 
with reality. Surgeons bothered with me ; and 
surgery in those days was rough. But we had the 
best of care, for our kin had gathered about us ; 
barring the lack of room, which made it necessary 
for Eliot and me to lie in the same chamber, we 


204 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


were comfortably housed. All about us, however, 
in barns and sheds and rudely improvised field- 
hospitals, lay our poor privates, row on row, dying 
of wounds, of fever, of the pitiless heat. We were 
not privates. Nathan West, grandsire of Kriem- 
hild, — her father and mother had died long 
before, — fine old boy, and Philadelphia merchant 
of the race now extinct, nodded his kindly head 
and told my parents that he would give bonds 
for my appearance safe and sound in two months, 
if he could have his will with me as with Eliot. 
On the southern slopes of the Blue Ridge, a day’s 
journey from Gettysburg, was a great mansion, 
with its sufficient acres, which he had long ago 
inherited from kinsfolk of the South. There in 
the fresh mountain air, safe within the new Union 
lines, those young men whom he was romantic 
enough to call his “heroes,” — Eliot, soon to 
count as his grandson, Clayton his great-nephew, 
and one John Heigh, son of his old friend and 
neighbour, — should be his happy guests, his 
patients, and should march at quickstep under 
his lead into the very citadel of impregnable 
health. My parents consented ; as soon as Eliot 
and I could totter a few paces from our beds, 
we were haled off to paradise. 

Our army was once again in its ancient haunts, 
fronted, as of old, by its unassailable and vigilant 
foe. But the North was safe. Vicksburg had 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


205 


fallen ; and everywhere rose talk of a grim, silent 
general who did things while others were dis- 
cussing and planning and excusing. Hope was 
in the air. England drew back from that im- 
pending recognition ; our navy tightened its long 
chain about the coast ; the disintegration of 
Union authority was checked with the last of the 
draft riots ; and our own individual reclaiming 
of life, with vanished fever and closing wounds, 
seemed a type of the larger cheer. Hilarity of 
convalescence has no equal ; we were soon jest- 
ing and smiling over the old place like Germans 
at a picnic, — all except George Clayton. 

It ’was bandied about in the army that Clay- 
ton, for a dozen battles, had been trying to be 
killed ; and all that came of his uncanny efforts 
was this trifling scratch at Gettsyburg. In my 
opinion, few men seek their bullet ; recklessness 
is another affair, and it is sure that Clayton was 
reckless. The reason, accepted on all sides, was 
his unrequited love for cousin Kriemhild ; but, 
then, they never yarned about my pursuit of dis- 
solution, and why make such a charge against 
the Virginian ? Nathan West would not hear of 
it. “ Stuff,” he said tersely. “ George was 
never a ladies’ man. Let him alone.” Of 
course we let him alone. But there were dis- 
quieting symptoms ; for instance, this. One 
day, when we had begun to go about, Clayton 


206 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


most nimbly of the three, old West broke upon 
our full group with news from the North. A 
friend in Washington wrote that the collapse of 
the confederacy was really imminent ; and by 
the way, two friends — ahem ! — on the spot 
commissioned him to announce the wedding of 
his granddaughter and Colonel Eliot in this 
very place one month or less from date. We set 
up shouts of joy ; but I could see Clayton’s 
cheek go pale as death. Then I joined the be- 
lievers ; and I know of a truth that men can be 
hard hit. I had recovered, yes ; but this Virgin- 
ian had a more sensitive system. We Heighs are 
a thick-skinned breed, and I have heard that the 
Withers, an English family, are connected with 
us. It was George of that ilk who made certain 
lines, excellent good in my humble judgment, 
about the rejected lover’s right attitude. And 
there is another ditty, something more blunt, but 
in that view, by Sir John Suckling, which I also 
subscribe. Clayton, however, could not say 
amen to any chant of “ the devil take her.” It 
was rather devil take him ; a poor compromise, 
I am sure. At any rate, he was hard hit ; and 
his amorous wound would not heal. A second 
time, too, I noted his trouble, in this case exacer- 
bated by an infusion of Cards ; you know that 
always, like my poor uncle, he balked at any 
idea of comradeship with excellent Linsey. It 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


207 


was a week or so after the marriage had been 
announced ; physical health was pouring into us 
like a Fundy tide, little as we were yet fit for 
service ; we sat upon the great columned piazza, 
with a lawn before us and noble trees, chatting 
over our mail. The sun was low. Latter 
August was come ; and for me there is no season 
that can peer it on the cool uplands, when days 
sing “ summer ” and nights murmur “ winter,” and 
those jolly little tenants of grass and leaf strike 
up the great farewell concert of their lives. 

“ Fancy ! ” It was Eliot who cried out the 
word, with something of that old exotic quality. 
“ Fancy ! ” He slapped a letter on his knee. 

“ What ? ” 

“ Or whom ? ” 

“ This — and him. Linsey Cards, — old Roarer, 
by Jove ! Just arrived in New York. Now, Mr. 
West . . 

“ Certainly, Waltham. He shall join the 
Boston party. Or better, now, now. Eh? Write 
him to come through at once. Wire him ! 
No? — Of course, of course. Well, I’ll write 
him myself.” 

“ Thank you, sir, heartily. — Listen, all of 
you. Here is his news. ‘The feeling in Ger- 
many, where they judge things without prejudice,’ 
— Lin is keen, sir, you know, very keen; you 
may trust old Cards, — ‘ is that the South is 


208 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


doomed. Here in New York I find the financial 
people quite as sanguine ; it seems to be no 
fairy-tale, but the war is near its end. This may 
not suit ambitious army officers, but it will suit 
their friends. May I soon dance at your wed- 
ding, and — why not ? — salute you at the 
same time as military governor of Virginia, — 
conquered, submissive Virginia ! 9 How that 
sounds ! 6 Conquered, submissive Virginia ! And 
will you hang Davis to that apple tree of 
the lyric, governor? Or will you exercise your 
clemency ? Will Mrs ’ and a lot more non- 

sense ! But fancy it all ! And he shall dance 
at our wedding.’’ 

“ That he shall,” echoed grandfather Nathan, a 
sound Philadelphian of the old rock, the kind 
that live to be ninety and have cheeks like a 
fresh apple. “ And we’ll bag this millionaire at 
once. — George, when does the mail leave Or- 
chard ville ? ” 

Clayton started. He had been staring out 
over the lawn. “ I beg pardon, sir. Orchardville ? 
Oh, — the mail. I will see.” He rose and went 
into the house, all of us noting his haggard look. 
— “ Poor fellow,” murmured Eliot to Kriemhild. 
And Kriemhild, most irrelevantly, turned to me 
with a wish that everybody could be sensible and 
nice and cheerful like John here. 

“ Thanks,” I said grimly. 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


209 


“ I shall see you married safely to Dolly West,” 
she went on. Dolly West is her cousin, Horace’s 
daughter. 

“ Thanks again. And to whom will you 
marry Linsey Cards ? ” I spoke it in my loud, 
harsh Pennsylvania drawl. 

“ Ho, ho ! ” laughed old West. “ There’s a 
countess or a baroness in the wood, I’ll be bound. 
A German baroness.” 

“ He’s welcome, I’m sure,” said Kriemhild, in 
her Philadelphia manner, the manner in which 
she still asks ‘ Who are they ? ’ with suspended 
lorgnette, at the opera or the horse-show. « So 
is the baroness. But you’re booked for Dolly, 
John ; and don’t pretend to struggle ! ” 

“ Will none of you Philadelphians ever be quite 
fair to old Linsey ? ” Waltham Eliot was more 
than half in earnest. “It’s the missing back- 
ground.” Just then Clayton appeared with his 
information, gave it quietly, and went into the 
house again. We chatted on awhile, but not 
quite so gaily as before ; chill had come with 
the twilight ; and at last we, too, went indoors. 
I pitied myself a little, as I stood alone in my 
room. But, as I thought things over, I pitied 
Clayton more. What really ailed him ? Could 
I cheer him up ? 


IV 


He was handsome in the southern way, tall, 
slender, sallow, with dark eyes ; punctilious in 
manner ; pious in the Presbyterian faith, and not 
too tolerant ; a great reader of books ; lonely. 
He was a whig and union man by inheritance ; 
his widowed mother, dying a few years before 
the war, had confirmed these principles of the 
father in the son and solemnly handed them down 
as the trust of the house. In 1860 he was care- 
ful to explain that “ union ” with him spelled 
neither republican nor abolitionist ; since 1860 he 
“ had no politics.” Common belief asserted 
that his politics were now centred in his fair 
cousin. He was not precisely coddled in the 
army ; like his great fellow- Virginian, General 
George H. Thomas, he got not the half of his 
deserts, not the tithe ... By . . . 

“ What is the matter, Major ? ” — I was walk- 
ing up and down, the manuscript in my hands. 

“ My hobby, that’s all,” I retorted sharply ; 
“can’t you see the poor thing I am striding? 
Oh, how they treated Thomas ! Why ... Yes, 
yes. I know. It’s all over.” — I sat down 
again, and read. 


210 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


211 


Fight as well as he could, and Clayton was a 
fine officer, he was kept under, watched, harried, 

shifted about ; you know how it was Banks 

“ the Bobbin Boy,” and Butler the Yankee law- 
yer, were our military jewels Luck, in a 

word, was always against poor Clayton. Neither 
laggard in love nor dastard in war, he was baffled 
in both. Poor devil of a brave, kindly, serious 
southern gentleman, doing his noble best under 
the union flag against his own kith and kin, his 
own household, his own splendid Virginia ! And 
rejected of the handsomest woman then alive ! — 
Poor chap ! 

I said those words under my breath, but with 
unction, one day as I hobbled slowly along a 
garden walk and met him coming up from the 
stables after his long and solitary ride : he went 
almost daily on these sombre expeditions, we 
knew not whither ; and as he came round a bend 
of the path, the look on his face was so close to 
anguish, the sort of anguish seen only in one who 
is under the knife of moral surgery, that a boy- 
and-boy emotion took hold of me. I limped 
straight to him and held out my hand ; there 
was nothing to say. He did not reach me his 
right hand at once ; first, he took from it a tiny 
bunch of the small, familiar flowers one finds in 
every cranny, and then responded slowly, but 
with his unvarying courtesy, to my rough act 


212 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


of sympathy. I think he appreciated it, for I am 
no meddler ; and indeed I had said nothing. We 
Heighs always mind our own business, — when 
we mind any at all. In silence Clayton and I 
turned to a garden bench, half buried in the tall 
box-bushes ; being a bit weary, I sank down with 
more of the invalid in my posture than I meant 
to show. He looked at me kindly, inquiringly, 
smiling faintly as my stubborn head shook warn- 
ing against any inquiries about health. — You 
know me well enough, young fellow, to guess my 
hatred of these morbid confidences. My father 
always frowned when people asked how he felt ; 
to be weak, fallen cherub, is miserable, but to be 
asked about your sensations of weakness is the 
deuce. — Clayton’s smile faded away. 

“We’re not a merry pair, are we?” I queried. 
There was just a bit of recoil in him, as if I were 
calling attention to the fact that each of us wore 
a fine large mitten marked K. W. But I was 
only looking at the hand with those flowers in 
it. He laid them on his knee and stared at 
them. 

“From my old home, Heigh, — off yonder, you 
know. And about all that is left of it.” 

“I know the brigade,” said I, with prompt 
viciousness, — “and the brigands. Always on 
hand to plunder and burn, and never in time to 
fight ! Look here, Clayton, that is the worst of 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


213 


this war. At times I even feel like throwing 
up the job.” 

“ You are kind to say it.” 

“ I mean it.” 

“ I believe you, quite.” 

“And,” I went on, determined to leave the 
wedding and its suggestions far behind us, — “ it 
must be tough for you to run against so many 
of your own people.” 

“ It is not cheerful.” He looked straight into 
the box across the path. “ Would you enjoy 
this sort of thing, Heigh ? At Gettysburg I 
found my cousin, Price Sudbury, dying on the 
field. One of my men had shot him. I did 
what I could. He thanked me . . . ceremoni- 
ously. I stammered out some stuff, — what I 
felt. £ Oh, that’s quite right,’ he said ; would 
hear no talk about home . . . send no messages 
. . . just politeness and reserve ; presently he 
rolled over away from me, to hide his last 
agony, and died. — These are my little diver- 
sions, Heigh.” 

“ Tough,” I assented ; “ tough.” And then, to 
cheer him, “ But it can’t last much longer,” I 
added. « Eliot tells me the collapse is really 
coming. Then the Washington people will 
give you free hand here ; think of the good you 
can do.” 

He didn’t answer this suggestion. “You 


214 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


think,” he said, « that the end is near ? They’ll 
fight, you know, to the last ditch.” 

“ Eliot says something has turned up, and Lee 
will be crushed. They’re no good without Lee. 
I hate, though, to think that Virginia has to take 
the brunt But ask Eliot.” 

“ I will.” 

A warning bell rang ; we got up and moved 
slowly toward the house. “ Well,” said I, 
“ to-night arrives the millionaire. Banker Cards, 
eh ? Well, bless his big, brave, patriotic heart ! 
Shy he was, and silent ; now he has been talking 
with Lord Palmerston and giving diplomatic tips 
to Mr. Adams. Let’s ask him to have us pro- 
moted. Shall we say ‘ sir ’ to him ? Why, I 
remember how my mother, the kindest woman 
alive, but awfully set about the family and that, 
boggled at the idea of Cards coming in to tea 
when the cousins were out in force. I tried to 
lug him in, but he knew. ‘Your mother won’t 
like it,’ says he. Then the old governor spied 
us. ‘Bring in Linsey, John,’ he called out; 
and afterward, I recollect, he said to mother, 
‘ Why, Sarah, we don’t live in feudal times ! ’ 
Feudal times , says the dear old boy. And now 
look at millionaire Lin ! He doesn’t live in feudal 
times. I tell you what, Clayton, here you and I 
were drinking ditchwater, chewing wheat-ears in 
the field, and getting potted with minie-bullets 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


215 


all over the place, — to put Mr. Cards in funds. 
Eh ? It’s we that live in feudal times.” 

“ Take my arm, Heigh. Don’t excite your- 
self.” 

“Well, — you’re not so calm either, come to 
that ! ” Certainly he didn’t seem cool ; but 
when I looked up, the cause of his perturbation 
was clear. Eliot and Kriemhild West came 
arm in arm toward us along the walk between 
box-bushes and the old-fashioned, kindly rows of 
flowers, a preposterously happy pair. 

— “ How did they look, Major ? The portraits 
of my uncle, you know, are not so imposing; 
I suppose it’s the fault of the photographers ” 

“ Oh, I know. I know. In the flesh, — well, 
he looked like you ; only thinner, wirier ; he had 
a moustache and enthusiasm. . . 

“ And she ? ” 

« How can I tell you ? Her photographs are 
worse yet. I’ve promised not to show the one she 

gave me Oh, yes, I’ve got it. Yes. Women 

then wore ungodly big skirts, you know, — 
crinoline, — and things in their hair, — ‘ rats ’ 
and < waterfalls,’ — ugh ! But she looked all 
right herself. All right ? Why she was the 
handsomest woman alive. That’s all. We know 
Cleopatra was handsome, because Mark Antony 
lost the world for her ; and we’d know nothing 
more about her, even if some rascal of a Bran- 


216 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


tome had been near enough to the galley for 
indiscretions of description. ... I had no world 
to lose for Kriemhild West in those days ; what 
I did was to lose my breath and sit down on the 
next garden bench. Clayton waited by me ; the 
fact was I had walked too far for my gills. . . . But 
they forgot me soon, when the two came and stood 
there, and just buttered solemn old Clayton. They 
wanted to make him amends for their own bliss. 
“ I am not a hilarious person at best, cousin,” says 
the poor chap in his quiet, southern voice ; “ and I 
shall let the negroes do my singing and dancing. 
But I shall be sincerely happy in your happi- 
ness.” — Who could ask more ? Kriemhild, how- 
ever, gave a little sigh. “ Come, John,” she said, 
as to a shaggy Newfoundland, some old dog 
Tray ; “ come in with us and eat some more 
strength.” So we started back quietly, with 
scattered words which fell now and then, here 
and there, like the leaves dropping at intervals 
in the silence about us, heralds of the coming 
autumn. 

We were livelier at a picnic which we impro- 
vised that afternoon, so mild and summer-like 
was the season, in a far-away corner of the 
woods. Old Nathan’s family was gathering 
for the nuptials, and increased our little party 
from day to day ; we made a fairly populous out- 
burst. Perhaps it was the merrier because our 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


217 


Virginian’s sad face was not to be seen. Clayton 
had to write letters, he said ; and remained in 
his room. The rest of us were fain to be stupidly 
vivacious after the manner of all folk at a picnic. 
I made jokes of the old Heigh brand ; and even 
got license, though the ladies thought it very 
vulgar and low, to read from a comic book which 
I carried about with me in those days ; and thus 
became the humble tool of Providence in open- 
ing the minds of that puzzled audience to the 
sayings of Artemus Ward. Aunt Mary, Nathan’s 
elderly and unmarried daughter, was quite scan- 
dalized ; Dolly West couldn’t see the jokes, but 
laughed ; while Horace, her sire, was plainly 
disgusted. He was a man of parts, read poems 
by Felicia Hemans, and had a quotation from 
Tupper, the book of his youth, ready on every 
occasion. Horace and I were never too sym- 
pathetic ; but it was not Horace’s fault. A 
widower, Nathan’s only living son since the 
early death of Kriemhild’s father, Horace was 
already in his forties and of excellent repute in 
hall and bower and public haunt. An ardent 
republican and unionist, he should now, he said, 
be in the field and at the front, a musket on his 
shoulder; but he had developed a mysterious 
threatening of pneumonia, caught in the recent 
drafts, complicated by a congenital heart trouble, 
and he was forced to pay the bounty and send a 


218 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


substitute in his stead. He was a model citizen ; 
and yet, thinking of him as possible father-in-law, 
I always performed in private a grimace of the 
most histrionic intensity. . . . 

It was jolly, I say, at the picnic. Cousin 
Nathan, like all Pennsylvanians, keen for a 
chance at coal, iron, oil, haled Horace and Dolly 
and sundry other guests to see some mineral 
deposits not far away, waving his hammer as he 
ambled off, a fine, hearty old boy, dear to my 
soul. Aunt Mary, Kriemhild’s Aunt Mary, spread 
shawls for me to lie on. . . . “ Yes, John, I will 

do it. And don’t mind what I said about that 
dreadful book ! Won’t you read mine , now ? ” — 
She held out Bishop Kipper’s Why am I a 
Churchman ? But I said, “ No, my father would 
be angry and Aunt Mary just laughed, patting 

me very gently on my sound shoulder I 

reclined near her under the fragrant pines, and 
watched the two lovers only a little space away. 
They needed no vulgar retreats to solitude ; 
happy, quietly happy, they sat there talking 
mainly together, now and then to us. They 
didn’t seem to mind the serene, simple-hearted 

old woman and the big, half-invalid boy I 

like to remember such scenes. . . . Kriemhild 
said something about the peaceful beauty of 
the afternoon ; Eliot replied something about 
augury. 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


219 


“Just what, Colonel Harvard College,” she 
queried, “ is augury ? What did augurs do ? ” 

“Oh, — they took sticks, — wands. And they 
marked out the heaven into quarters, and then 
they waited for a flock of birds as omen. It 
depended, you see, first on the kind of birds and 
secondly, on the point of the compass from which 
they came.” 

“ Give me your cane. I’m going to try it.” — 
She stood a little space from him and marked off 
her regions with graceful wavings of the cane. 

“ Let me help you,” quoth the Colonel, rising, 
with ardour for divination in his glance. She 
was fair to look upon, swaying there with inex- 
pressible grace ; no one has yet invented the 
quaternions for that motion. . . . 

“ Stay where you are, sir ! No interruptions 
during service ! Wait for the benediction. — 
Now, come, birdies ! Come ! ” 

“ But here am I ! ” 

“ Tame domestic fowl don’t count. Come, 
birdies ! ” She stamped her foot prettily. 
“ Come.” — And behold, the birdies came. 
Two men emerged from a winding path sud- 
denly upon our little group, — Linsey Cards, 
and George Clayton as his guide. The banker 
had arrived by an earlier train, — perhaps he 
had chartered a special: who knows? — and 
Clayton politely did the honours, escorting his 


220 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


guest immediately to the friends who now 
greeted him with an emotion that fairly took 
my breath. I didn’t know that Eliot cared so 
much for him. How they clasped and held 
hands, those two ! Cards was a new creature 
to me ; he had not been looking for two years 
eye to eye into Europe’s keenest faces for noth- 
ing ; four-square, erect, poised, — well, you know 
the man now. Imagine him still under thirty ! 
And Eliot seemed to flash back into all his old 
alertness as he stood there with his friend’s hand 

tight clasped in his own “If that is the type 

of combined soldier and civilian of the North,” so 
I muttered to Clayton, looking at them, “ the 
South is doomed indeed.” Clayton made no 
answer ; he was gazing, poor chap, at Kriemhild. 
She, too, was surprised, pleased ; she greeted 
Cards cordially. The old partition fell down 
forever, and I need not say how Cards fairly 

glowed with pleasure at the change Come 

back, Grandsire Nathan, come back, Horatius, 
back and welcome this man ; sup with him, 
drink with him, make him one of us. — You 
know what that means, or rather what it used 
to mean, in Philadelphia. Elbert-Kelley and his 

breed have spoiled the old exclusive ways 

And so at last we gather for the rustic meal, — 
but only rustic in its setting. We are hungry, 
jolly ; there is great clatter, chatter : then a lull. 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


221 


Cousin Nathan uncorks a special bottle, and Hor- 
ace names the vintage We have put aside 

now the desire of meat ; it is the accursed hour 

of toasts I loathe the custom, as you know ; 

but Cousin Nathan has notions derived from his 
uncle, the chief-justice, and loves, after the man- 
ner of that mighty prandial orator, to combine 
sentiment and wit. We drink to our new guest, 
eliciting a pleasant brevity of thanks in measured 
tones. And then, of course, the great effort. 
“ Let us drink,” says Nathan, cheerily, « to the 
welfare of both Unions — fill, George, my boy; 
are you dreaming ? — to both Unions ! ” 

— « My father,” whispers Horace, with great 
suavity, to Cards, “ is very happy in this line, 
you know. He frequently quotes Latin, — fre- 
quently.” 

“ Quite so,” says Cards. He has not yet made 
Horace out. — And now the sun has dropped 
behind the blue hills ; we drive home in the 
gathering dusk. They put me, I remember, 
into the corner of the rear seat in one of the 
open mountain wagons, as carefully as if I had 
been a crate of chinaware, wrapping me, more- 
over, in a cloak and tucking shawls about my 
legs ; Kriemhild herself came next me, saying 
the two friends should sit together in front of 
us and talk their fill. Clayton, who seemed to 
me to let his broken heart show its fracture 


222 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


more frankly than was to be expected from a 
cavalier on his own soil, was sent as a kind of 
Black Care to remind our driver of his mortality ; 
silent and isolated sat the Virginian all our way 
home. But Hollo and Jonas talked for a dozen, 

— Harvard days, the war, doings abroad 

Kriemhild looked at me thoughtfully, as if she 
would like to invent some comprehensive bless- 
ing for me. My face answered in that inveterate 
grin which passes with us Heighs as a smile; 
but my heart sent up a sigh. 

« I wish . . .” she began. 

“ I know you do,” said I. 

“ Silly dear old John ! ” 

“ Precisely.” 

“ Not at all ! That is, — I mean ...” 

“ I can’t even drive now, can I ? ” 

— I believe women like this sort of thing ; at 
any rate, the soft look on her face and a strain 
of loyalty in my crabbed mind drew me beyond 
my wont. We were going from the light into 
a bit of forest, dusky and full of odorous pine. 

This time I didn’t try to kiss her ; but I did 
close out a long debt of sentiment and . . . well, 
sentiment. “ Kriemhild,” I said, with a little 
quiver in my voice, “God bless you. . . . And when 
I say that the man there, to whom you give your 
heart, is worthy of you, and deserves his happi- 
ness, tremendous as that happiness must be. . . 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 223 

Mountain roads are rough. Just then we hit 
a big stone, and as we were at a sharp trot, the 
result was disconcerting to a degree. I was the 
invalid ; and Kriemhild beside me flung out her 
hand to hold and stay me precisely as in front of 
me the ever serviceable Cards, swiftly helpful, 
undertook a similar office. Instead of grasping 
me, each of them grasped the other’s hand. It 
was most amusing, and put a deserved end to 
my sentiment. Indeed, we all laughed so heart- 
ily that the episode, in common justification of 
our sense of humour, had to be detailed to George 
Clayton. 

“ Really ? Oh, indeed ! ” was his intelligent 
comment; and then he relapsed into his silent 
mood. Not we, though. Cards and Eliot faced 
halfway to the rear, and the four of us were all 
as arch and funny and full of chat as we could 
be. We came into the open country now, and 
struck the smooth highroad ; talking on, as I 
remember, until importunate influences of night 
began to work upon us. Silence fell little by 
little into our more incoherent efforts, muffling 
them at last altogether, as a round moon swam 
up over the pines through the cool, windless air. 
How peaceful it all was ! This too, though late 
and waning, would be their wedding moon. 

Meanwhile, the Army of the Potomac was 
lying only five-and-twenty miles or so away. 


224 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


Our outmost pickets were a few rods from Lee’s 
own lines. Now and again, some cavalry troop 
dashed against the enemy, exchanged shots, and 
galloped off again, with perhaps a dozen riderless 
horses and leaving as many blue-coated forms 
prone upon the Virginia sod. 


V 


There was no fear, however, for us. The 
mountain walls were between us and the two 
armies ; while we knew that after Gettysburg 
and Vicksburg no invasion of the North would 
be so much as imagined by the confederate staff. 
We thanked the fates for sparing us this fine old 
house, rejoiced in our easy communication with 
home, and looked eagerly for new triumphs of 
the union flag. But the late summer and 
autumn of 1863 were marked, as you remember, 
by no action of note between these armies of the 
east ; marchings and counter-marchings went on, 
concentrations, advances, and retreats; but de- 
spite impatient orders from Washington, a great 
battle could not be fought. So history records 
the case ; but history does not tell of the brill- 
iant raids, the surprises, the deep and far-reaching 
plans, which officers carried out ... on paper ; in 
reality one or two enterprises of the sort at least 
came within sight of success. Kilpatrick almost 
captured Richmond. But for one of these affairs 
actually undertaken, there were fifty which, 
planned and attempted in secret, were in secret 
q 225 


226 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


frustrated. Against our plots, too, there was 
store, surplus, of counterplots in Richmond. 

Eliot told us of sundry failures in the past, and 
pointed out the cause. At first it was amateur 
bungling; then it was the spy, the traitor, who 
by some trick wormed his way into every enter- 
prise and betrayed it. “We are done, now, 
with him” said the Colonel, grimly, — he pre- 
ferred the regular title to his generalship of vol- 
unteers, — “ and the next attempts will be 
neither bungled nor betrayed ! I could tell you 
things ! ” 

This heartened us all mightily. What wflth such 
an assurance, from such a source ; what with the 
early autumnal peace all about us, crops fairly 
housed, and the high woods aflame in gorgeous 
yellows and reds like banners of triumph ; 
what with the happy rites so close at hand ; 
small wonder that we wagged our heads in 
assent when old Cousin Nathan declared that by 
the time yonder trees were in new leaf, our 
excellent Major-general Eliot here, in civilian 
clothes, and his wife, in a new Easter bonnet, 
could “take a through ticket from Boston to 
Charleston and see the old flag flying all the 
way.” Oddly enough, the only dissenters were 
Cards, who smiled, — he had been more conserva- 
tive of late, as his letters kept him posted about 
sentiment abroad, — and Clayton, who frowned. 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


227 


I sympathized with Clayton; and certainly the old 
man harped too much on this wedding string. 
Keep a word like “ wife ” until after the cere- 
mony. It jarred even on me. 

A pleasant week had now sped since the 
picnic, and our wedding company was all assem- 
bled ; we were literally on the eve of the mar- 
riage-day. The Boston party, of course, made 
itself felt quite out of proportion to its size. 
Indeed, over a snug wood-fire in the big drawing- 
room that night, from sheer wantonness, I suppose, 
we twitted Eliot openly about his Bostonese. 
Even the Philadelphia worm will turn. I de- 
plored Kriemhild’s uncanny prospect in being 
forced to acquire such an outrageous dialect. 
Aunt Mary, true to her Bishop Kipper, put in 
serious words about her niece’s islanded Episco- 
palian faith in that Unitarian sea. 

“ Unitarians,” so Kriemhild was pleased to say, 
with apologies to Eliot’s famous “ Uncle George,” 
the Tom Eliot of many a legend, and understood 
in matters of creed to be “ nothing whatever,” 
— “ Unitarians make my blood run cold ! ” 

This was too inviting for Grandsire Nathan 
to resist ; we heard the dogs unleashed to run 
down an ancient quarry ; but it was soon over. 
“ I know,” he said, “ one Unitarian that doesn’t 
make your blood run cold ! — Eh, George ? ” 

We presented arms to aged humour in its 


228 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


Old Madeira habit ; and Kriemhild went on 
with her lament. 

44 And such preachers ! When Mrs. Willy’s 
aunt died, old Mrs. Danvers, you know, they 
sent to Boston for her minister. . . . Oh, that 
funeral sermon and that prayer ! ” 

“Just why ‘Oh!’” asks “Uncle George” 
suavely, “ except on general principles ? ” 

“ Why, — he called God 4 Infinite and Name- 
less Presence ’ : wasn’t that awful ? And he 
asked the Infinite and Nameless Presence to 
take back poor old Mrs. Danvers into 4 Nature’s 
great Activities’ until the 4 Translated Vital 
Forces, pursuing a beautiful mission in plant 
and herb . . 

44 Oh, stop, — pray stop ! ” Aunt Mary was 
agitated. 

Tom Eliot laughed. 44 That must have been 
a Buddhist from Hingham,” he said, 44 or some- 
thing freakish. But how much better it is all 
done in Italy ! Those smooth old priests and the 
Latin and the candles and the . . . Hallo ! What’s 
this?” He stopped short. Cards was calling 
attention to some noise outside ; Cards had now 
as little to say on Unitarians as he had on the 
conduct of the war. But he was practical. 
There were horses’ hoofs on the drive, barking 
of the dogs, voices back and forth. . . . 

Eliot, as he rose, muttered something in Latin 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


229 


about the profani keeping their distance. — “ It 
was profane,” assented Aunt Mary, with this 
awful talk still ringing in her ears ; she was 

sure Eliot would soon be in the church 

Uriah, the black butler, had now put his grizzled 
head through the doorway. 

“ What is it ? ” 

“ Soldiers, sir,” answered Uriah, unconsciously 
speaking, looking, and acting a minor part in 
Macbeth. 

“ They want . . . ? What soldiers ? ” 

“ Union, Mass’ Nathan. To see the Colonel.” 

“ I’ll go, sir, I’ll go. No, Clayton ! John 
Heigh, you desperate villain, sit still ! Amuse 
the ladies ! Talk about Boston ! And no 
tragedy, mind ! — There isn’t any.” — He went 
out. 

Voices rose and fell in the hall ; heavy foot- 
steps were heard, and the door of the library 
closed upon Eliot and his visitors. In ten 
minutes he was back again ; and the smile on 
his face spoke of pleasure in two sections. 

“Just a sergeant and a few privates with 
secret despatches for me. They came from . . . 
well, not from the main force. And they 
brought fine news, great news ; by-and-by 
you shall know it. Not now. And . . . Kriem- 
hild . . . nothing to interfere with to-morrow. 
... I took the liberty, sir, of sending the fellows 


230 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


to get some food. I’ve a bit of writing to 
do, and then I shall join you again. That’s all.” 
— And he left us once more. 

“ If I have to say it,” commented Kriemhild 
proudly, “ there is Waltham Eliot for you. First 
his duty ; then, at the earliest possible moment, 
relieving our minds ; then to do his work to the 
end.” 

“ Selfish business-men like me,” confessed Cards, 
with pretty implication of compliment, “ would 
have forgotten all about you outsiders until the 
thing was done.” 

“We’re training for bachelors, aren’t we, 
Cards?” said I. 

“ Not a bit of it,” interposed Kriemhild ; “ I 
shall have both of you safely married, in Phila- 
delphia too, before next year is out. We know 
some charming girls there, don’t we, Dolly ? ” 

Dolly is not incisive enough even to look 
uncomfortable. Horace, as man about town 
and member of our one club, tells of several 
matches said to be imminent, with considerable 
talk of family ties and intricate relationships. 
In the midst of his latest anecdote, Eliot enters 
the room again ; and we all gather closer about 
the fire. The wind had risen outside, accent- 
ing the cosiness and comfort of our group. We 
talked sprightly nothings, as people do when 
they are very happy and begin to feel intimate ; 


THE EPIC) OF THE FOUNDING 


231 


then we grew quieter and quieter in our sense of 
peace. I shall never forget that group about 
the fire ; I can still see each face as clear as it 
appeared to me then. The expressions ranged 
from an intense happiness playing in one rich 
tone over the lovers, through a dignified vacuity 
on the features of old West, — who could do 
his honest thinking, and effective thinking, on 
occasion, but in true Philadelphian faith believed 
that frequent holidays were as good for the 
intellect as for the muscles, — through placidity 
and neutral but kindly content in the guests at 
large, through my own stupid grin, half melan- 
choly and half congratulative, through the quiet 
strength of Linsey Cards, down to that settled 
gloom of George Clayton. It was no obvious, 
no sullen gloom, just the background and the 
suggestion ; no one could have met all the re- 
quirements of the occasion better than he met 
them ; but I could divine the gloom, deep and 
irremediable, behind the courtesy of his glance 
and the brief kindness of his words. I say I 
remember well every face which fronted the fire 
that night ; but best of all I have in memory the 
melancholy and the hopelessness on the features 
of George Clayton. 


VI 


Ivies and other green things, and bright 
autumn leaves, and such flowers as braved an 
early frost, were hung about the house. The 
rector of a remote church, as yet unscathed by 
war, had ridden over betimes, and was smiling 
on the green things, smiling on the guests, smil- 
ing at the scent of old Virginia cookery. He was 
vastly in the way. Exigencies of one sort and 
the other forbade a wedding before noon ; Aunt 
Mary herself gave a dispensation for the purpose, 
and only hoped there was no bad omen in it. 
It was not to be until six o’clock ; then a great 
supper ; and then bride and groom should quietly 
drive off to a place near by, lent them, in English 
style, for the honeymoon. Eliot must be within 
reach of despatches. But the crazy rector, poor 
soul, rode over to breakfast, and was an irrele- 
vancy all day long. He engaged busy people in 
conversation, and apologized, with quick retreat, 
for intruding upon the Boston group, who had 
nothing whatever to do. Aunt Mary, with all 
her grovelling reverence for the cloth, was dis- 
tinctly heard once to say “ Bother Mr. Dodough!” 

232 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


233 


— and before the servants. Old West, who was 
very busy, uttered a plain word of commination, 
and told the butler to give Mr. Dodough Mr. 
West’s compliments, and Mr. Dodough would 
find some devotional books in the library, “ and 
my son Horace, — and cigars. Get him cigars, 
Uriah, and a glass of wine. And glue him to 
Mr. Horace. Ah ! And come back here, Uriah! 
Mind to-night, that Mr. Tom Eliot of Boston — 
white moustache, eh ? — is one of the few who 
will know my Chateau Yquem from root-beer, 
Uriah.” 

“ But the Colonel, Marse Nathan, the Colonel, 
he know ” 

“Ordinarily, Uriah, ordinarily. Not to-night. 
Eh ? Now, boy, off with you ” 

At last the sun has stretched out all the hills, 
and the parson has been pushed somehow into 
his place, trying hard to assume that air of Bless- 
you-all-and-what-an-occasion ; he is also mutter- 
ing to himself the two Christian names he has 
to use, one strange and the other uncanny, and 
in point of fact he will presently call the Colonel 
Kriem-hilddd very majestically. Everybody is 
alert. We are all in the great drawing-room, 
which looks fine enough with its colonial furni- 
ture and its old-fashioned flowers Here they 


come. 


234 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


Colonel Waltham Eliot wears the regulation 
uniform of his permanent rank, looking every 
inch the soldier that he is. The pictures of 
forty years ago make men in our uniform seem 
so truculent and so absurdly martial ; but my 
dear old friend, dominant in his manhood, his 
dignity and kindliness, kept uniforms a very 
subordinate question. Cards, on the other hand, 
who supports him in this capital affair, gives 
one a quite lively sense of Bond-Street and 
guineas and the solid British way ; Tom Eliot 
whispers to another Boston uncle the name of 
a famous London tailor. They know Cards of 
old. “ Linsey-Woolsey still, for all the tailor- 
ing, eh ? ” he says. “ But look at Waltham ! *’ — 
That is what we are all doing, until the bride 
comes. — Don’t ask me to describe her. — Aunt 
Mary weeps audibly, and tells me this is the 
gown in which Kriemhild’s mother, poor dear, 
was married long ago. — Don’t ask me to de- 
scribe her, I say. — I stared at her, I know, as a 
boy stares, helpless, captive. . . . And now they 
are man and wife. 

How we all got out there I could never re- 
member, try as hard as I might. I see the drive- 
way and the trees ; I see that pale, dusty rider 
clear against a red sky of sunset ; I see Eliot 
standing there close to him, talking low and 


THE EPIC OP THE POUNDING 


235 


handling the scrap of paper ; Kriemhild near her 
husband, and Cards, and old West looking quite 
too old in a kind of anticipative horror ; and the 
rest of us huddled on the piazza. I glance be- 
hind us at black servants popping out their heads 
from places of vantage in the hall, and, stately 
vista, at the great dining-room doors wide open, 
and a table with flowers and silver and lights 
and dazzling spaces of linen . . . and I can even 
hear an impertinent little clock somewhere 
within, striking the half-hour. So I know that 
it was half after six, and the most perturbed 
wedding-party of which I ever heard or read or 
dreamed. 

“ What does the man want ! — What has he 
done ? — What has Waltham to do with it ? ” — 
So the questions fly about in our party of the 

middle background “ Done spoiled a bully- 

good Morgan hoss ; foundered, sure,” is a voice, 
presumably the coachman’s, from somewhere in 
the hall, where Africa is getting aggressively 
curious, but ready for retreat on the signal. 
Well ! Horse and rider are as near exhaustion as 
may be ; the man wavers now and then in his 
saddle ; and Eliot, ever humane, notes the fact 
amid all his intense preoccupation with the 
message on his little scrap of paper. He turns 
around to us, pale enough, but with a strange 
glitter in his eye. 


236 


THE HOUSE OF CAKDS 


“ This good fellow, Mr. West, has ridden from 
Tarkiln Corners. Will you ? . . 

“ Bless my soul ! Certainly ! — Here, boy,” — 
to a negro who appears like an exhalation from 
some concealing bush, — “ take this horse, and 
see if you can save him,” — Nathan evidently 
ad some Virginian blood in him, — “ and give 
the soldier what he wants.” Off they went, 
groom, weary rider, and wearier horse. Eliot 
stood, facing us all, in the road, holding his flut- 
tering little note ; it was like an opera. Then 
he spoke as much to himself as to us. 

“ There is only one thing to do.” 

“ No, there isn’t ! ” This fine bit of English, 
I must confess, proceeded out of my own stupid 
mouth. Eliot smiled ; he lifted the paper. 

“This must be in General Meade’s hand by 
midnight. Then — before the second midnight 
— we shall be in Richmond, — the army, I 
mean. Kriemhild, dear, I must take it.” 

“ No ! ” — It would have done credit to a 
trained chorus, this “ No ” of ours. I lumbered 
to the fore. “ Give me the daggers,” I said ; for 
I had had a liberal education. “ You can’t ride, 
anyway ; and it’s a groom’s errand, not a bride- 
groom’s.” Never was feebler wit more uproari- 
ously applauded. I made lissome movements to 
show how well I could back my horse ; but I 
felt the enthusiasm of our group wane ominously 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 237 

as they looked at me. Eliot shook his head. 
“ I’m game,” I insisted. 

“Game? No doubt of it, John. And I’d 
trust you gladly. But able, fit? — No. It 
would be a double crime to kill you and lose 
Richmond. No, no.” — Well, he spoke the 
truth ; riding was not my business for three 
months more, and I had no right to risk so 
mighty a mission going wrong. Sadly I stepped 
back, Kriemhild grasping my hand as I passed 
her, with a low “ Dear John ! ” — But somebody 
now brushed forward by us both out into the 
open space ; and how we all breathed deep relief 
as the evident but unthought-of thing came to 
pass ! George Clayton was speaking. 

“ I am in uniform,” he said, “ and can go at 
once. General Meade, you say ? . . . Give 
me . ...” 

But Eliot again shook his head, this time in 
visible embarrassment. Both men looked agitated 
even beyond the exigencies of this very exigent 
occasion. The rest of us all felt more or less 
embarrassed out of sympathy. You see the 
situation ; two old lovers of the bride, one in 
a fairly desperate maze over his failure, trying to 
go substitute for the happy husband. In another 
setting, it had been comedy ; in any case it 
was embarrassing. But why should Eliot be so 
deeply perturbed, and why, moreover, should he 


238 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


shake his head ? I knew. Eliot had been 
instructed positively from Washington to entrust 
no responsible duty to the Virginian. 

“ Come with me, Clayton, and welcome. I 
shall be glad to have you ; — in fact, as you 
know the roads so well, I shall need you. But 1 
must go. Be my guide.” 

Clayton looked pale beyond the wont of man. 
He must have understood ; as indeed I think 
Cards and one or two of the rest suspected the 
real situation. But he refused to accept it. 

“You must not go, Colonel Eliot. As you say, 
I know the roads, and the thing can be done in 
a few hours. Your place is here ; and the gov- 
ernment can have . . .” 

“ I think, Clayton, that I must interrupt you. 
Delay is very bad ; and I have made my decision. 
It is absolutely my duty. Chivalry from Bayard 
to Havelock could do no more than you have 
done. Kriemhild and I thank you — and, 
potentially, old John here — as few persons ever 
thanked a friend. After all, though, what is it ? 
A ride through no dangers whatever, on the 
greatest mission of the war. This in Meade’s 
hands — think of it — and the days of the re- 
bellion are numbered ! Of course, I return, and 
you too, at once. My mission ends with the 
delivery of this paper. — So,” he turned to Mr. 
West, “two of your best mounts, sir, please, and 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


239 


immediately. A bite or two won’t hurt us, and 
a glass of wine. Bring it all here for us both,” 
he called to the retreating servant. 

You can fancy the confusion, the groups, the 
forward-and-back, the loud talk everywhere, anar- 
chy of the household, and the whispered, hurried 
good-bye of the just-married pair, who were after 
all quieter and more at ease than any one else, 
except, perhaps, Cards. Poor fellow ! with all his 
wisdom, he couldn’t get us out of this scrape as 
at the quarry ; he contented himself with little 
practical and helpful things. For instance, he 
suggested that light cloaks be strapped to the 
saddles, for a chance halt or bivouac ; and he 
fetched Eliot and Clayton their swords. 

“ Surely you’ll not need those ? ” so I ventured 
to say. “ You’ve your pistols. You don’t want 
those irons banging about you. It’s not parade.” 

“ I don’t know,” says Eliot. “ Pistols will be 

too noisy near the lines . These are good for 

quiet work.” So Cards gave Eliot his sword, 
just as the horses were brought up ; and Kriem- 
hild, taking Clayton’s sword herself, handed it 
with infinite grace to her cousin. “ Oh, you are 
more than good,” she said ; but Clayton was too 
full of his emotion to reply. He only bowed 
acknowledgment; and I wondered if any face 
was ever so white and drawn as his. 

A stirrup-cup for last, on the restless horse ; 


240 THE HOUSE OF CARDS 

Eliot takes it from his wife, and calls out his 
wild, almost joyous toast. He felt his own 
mettle now ; he saw the great things ahead ; it 
was war time ; flushed with the fire of it all, he 
sat straight, drank the last drop, and hurled the 
glass far away. “ To the downfall of the rebel- 
lion, and to our meeting here at Christmas with 
the old flag floating over Richmond! — And 
good-bye, good-bye ! — Clayton ! ” 

They were off. We caught fire, too, now ; 
and a great hurrah went up. I told you it was 
a kind of opera ; a confoundedly effective one, 
by Jove ! Kriemhild stood free and alone, be- 
fore us all, out in the open space, the white dress 
clinging about her, and one white arm waving 
her good-bye. Eliot turned with a last greeting, 
lost in the sound of the hoof beats which pounded 
the hard drive. It was fair dusk now ; we could 
hardly follow the riders as they swept, two mere 
blurs in the light mist, round a bend of the 
avenue. But the air was very still; no one said 
a word ; and for some time we could hear that 
double rhythm of the first gallop far along the 
southern road. Then it died away. We shiv- 
ered ; and Nathan West drove us all within 
doors. I found that somebody had thrown a 
cloak over my shoulders ; I think it was Cards. 
He did his best to be useful that night. 


VII 


Every one had enough self-control to say noth- 
ing of Hamlet, as we took our seats round the 
table and began the wedding-feast. I always 
think that we acted admirably that night ; dig- 
nified without solemnity, and cheerful without 
unnatural mirth, we made the best of it. Hard 
for Kriemhild was the occasion, very hard ; but 
she rose to it finely. Tom Eliot came out in 
great form ; he sped his easy wit, his epigrams, 
and told his stories of cities and men, manners 
and government ; we drew from Cards, too, some 
effective anecdotes of the dominant and finan- 
cial world abroad. And it was all so comfort- 
able ; such a sense of home and peace was about 
us ! Old portraits smiled from the walls ; the gen- 
erous cheer warmed us to response, and spread 
from neighbour to neighbour the whispered 
mutual assurance that all was well, and that a 
ride through the cool September night, on such 
a glorious errand, was something that the gallant 
colonel and his wife would tell about with pride, 
half a century hence, to grandchildren gathered 
in this very room. . . . Had we lived two hundred 
b 241 


242 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


years earlier, we should have spoken out the 
prophecy ; as it was, each confided it to his 
neighbour. 

So we sat through the wedding-feast not 
ingloriously ; and when the ladies left us, we 
felt that the maimed rite had been well rescued 
from failure. Old West, of course, Tom Eliot 
and other male relatives, Horace and Cards, 
even I, despite plain hints about convalescence 
and bed, sat up to meet and greet the colonel 
and his generous squire. Food was to be ready 
for them; it would be well on in the small 
hours when they arrived. We gathered for our 
vigil before the fireplace in the hall, and Uriah 
made us a fine blaze for brightness as well as 
warmth. Little rings and clouds of cigar-smoke 
scudded into the draught and up the chimney. 
Other materials of comfort were about us. Our 
peerless man of the world took up the talk 
again. 

“That nephew of yours, West,” said Tom 
Eliot, easily, eyeing his cigar with approval, 
“Clayton, — fine fellow, by Jove, — acted re- 
markably well.” 

“ He did, Eliot ; he did. He always does.” 

“ But he seemed so devilish excited for such 
a cool and silent man, — soldier, too, don’t you 
know ? I watched him like a hawk. Was he 
thinking of the old Border chances, — swift 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


243 


horse, and bride in the saddle before him, and 
off, eh ? It’s a case of Lochinvar manqui , isn’t 
it?” 

“Lochinvar? Oh, I see! — Ha, ha! Very 
good ! ” said Horace the classical and affable ; 
“ but Lochinvar what ? What was your Latin ? ” 

Mr. Tom Eliot, smiling, put the question by, 
a proceeding almost indifferent to Horace, who 
had been fortifying the cardiac processes. — “No? 
Really ? ” said the Bostonian, as old West shook 
his head and declared that we were all wrong 
there. 

“No? Well, then, — I stick to my Scottish 
precedents, you see, — he looked uncommonly 
like loupin’ o’er a linn, and that sort of thing, 
if not like running off with a bride.” — Mr. 
Tom Eliot wrote now and then for the Oceanic 
Monthly and had literary leanings of the gra- 
cious, condescending sort. — « After all,” he went 
on, gazing fondly into the fire and seeing who 
knows what pictures of a laughing lad and a 
teasing, jolly uncle adrift in Europe years ago, 
« after all, it’s that boy of mine ! He makes a 
selfish, cynical old bachelor like me fairly enthu- 
siastic. I wish his father were alive to see him 
now. — You knew him intimately as a lad, 
Captain Heigh ? Aha, that duel, what ? Per- 
fect, perfect. — And you, of course, Mr. Cards, 
were acquainted with him at college.” 


244 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


I nodded. Cards shifted his legs, then smiled. 
“ You have no monopoly of him for memories, 
sir,” he replied, ignoring that drop from cordial- 
ity to ceremony, “ not even as Uncle George ! 
Why, hang it all ! at college they used to call 
us two Rollo and Jonas.” 

The Jonas of it tickled Tom Eliot, and he 
laughed his musical laugh. There was a little 
silence. 

“Take it all in all,” said I, “if you wished 
now to show a real American, the best we breed, 
to some foreign chap, some Dickens — confound 
him ! — for more Notes, who is there that you 
could find better than Waltham Eliot?” 

“Nobody,” said Cards. 

“I agree with you,” added Nathan West; “but 
if some one were present with a larger strain of 
southern blood than I can boast, you could hear 
a pretty eloquent plea for George there, — type 
of the chivalry and all that. A sounder gentle- 
man doesn’t breathe. He’s had no chance for his 
qualities as an officer ; a southerner in our army 

has hard going But I grant your claim, 

John. — Waltham : God bless him ! — Fill up ! ” 

We drank, praising both ; and then, from that 
lauding word we turned to talk of the war, of 
the figures in it, — who had begun, who had 
failed, who had come to renown, and who had 
fallen by the way. 


VIII 


Night closed about these riders a half-hour 
from the hall, as they trotted steadily along. It 
was native heath to Clayton; but in his over- 
wrought state of mind he came near making a 
bad blunder, turning to the right at a crossing. 
Eliot, always wary, lighted a hasty match, read 
the plain legend on the guide board, and called 
Clayton back to the straight road. “ Fine 
mess ! ” he cried. “ That would have taken us 
to your Uncle Robert, not to Meade. I admire 
General Lee ; but I shall defer my call until the 
war is over, — early next month. And I say, 
Clayton ! Look sharp, my dear fellow ! We 
can’t risk another mistake.” 

Clayton pulled himself together, apologized, 
and proceeded to give a clear account of the 
case. “ We are still on the Old Pike. The next 
turn really is to the right, — see the stars ; we 
are bearing a bit north now, but the road we 
shall take leads straight to our lines.” 

Eliot welcomed the lucid statement for itself 
and for its implication; the poor chap’s mind 
must be kept off the wedding at any cost, and 
245 


246 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


so, affable as the archangel, our colonel talked of 
the important errand before them, told some- 
thing of its reach and consequence, and dwelt 
upon the inevitable final result. “ It means that 
we shall crush Lee utterly — I hope with as little 
bloodshed as possible. Think of that ! ” Clayton 
did think of it, and they rode on a good space in 
silence. 

Now they came to the height of the pass in a 
range of partly wooded hills ; over the tree-tops, 
over a deep little chasm and the sharp rise from 
it just in front of them, they looked away into 
the valley where our army of the Potomac lay 
in camp stretched far along the sinuous line of a 
stream. They held rein, Eliot and Clayton, un- 
der a sky sprinkled with dim stars, and amid the 
silence of the hills. A light mist, still transpar- 
ent, was gathering in the hollows and in the plain. 

“ It’s easy enough now, thank God ! How 
different it will all seem a few hours hence as 
we spur by this place for home ! ” 

“ Home! ” — Clayton’s voice vibrated strangely. 
He had “ home ” neither before him nor behind 

him It went to the colonel’s heart, the 

pathos of this cry from a homeless, joyless man. 
The horses walked discreetly down the slope of 
the road into a hollow before them, close to- 
gether; Eliot put out his hand and touched his 
comrade’s shoulder. 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


247 


“ Clayton,” be said, « I am so sorry for you. 
Silence is right in these things, and I must not 
force my sympathy on one who has never asked 
for it, never acknowledged a cause for it. But 

do let me feel for you, — with you. I know ” 

“ Ah ! ” It came like an explosion. “ You 
have guessed it, then ? ” 

Eliot smiled in the darkness. Trees were 
arched thickly over them ; but a few paces 
ahead was open ground and the dull light of 
stars. « Yes,” he said gently, “ I have guessed it. 

And . . . Kriemhild ” 

“God bless her! She has our blood in her 
veins.” 

“ If there were any sacrifice we could make . . .” 
“ If . . . See, Colonel Eliot ! ” They reined up 
their horses in the open place. “ See, — could 
you not make that sacrifice, the supreme sacri- 
fice, great as it is ? ” 

The poor man’s brain must be turned. Eliot 
spoke slowly, distinctly, as to a child. “That 
sacrifice, dear fellow ? No. Think a little.” 

“ It is not too late.” 

“ Not too late ? How ? What ? ” 

“ No, there is still time. Here we two are ; 
and you have guessed my secret. Go over the 
struggle with me. Put yourself in my place ; 
put all else, your friends, your kin, what the 
world might say, your wife herself, — put all 


248 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


aside. Don’t destroy a brother. Be generous. 
Renounce. I know what I ask, — but renounce.” 
“ Renounce ? What ? My wife ? ” 

“ Oh ! ” Disgust, wrath, scorn, all were concen- 
trated in the syllable. And “ Oh ! ” again. “ Are 
you in that fool’s mind, too ? Kriemhild ! No ! 
Have you not understood me ? ” 

“ Renounce what, then ? ” Eliot’s voice rang 
clear. “ What is all this ? You don’t love her ? 
You love ...” 

“Virginia ! My state, my people, the South ! ” 

“ Oho ! And you rode with me And you 

would turn . . . Oho ! All these months, — 
years, — in that uniform ? ” 

Men were schooled in those days to surprise, 
but Eliot’s reaction was cruel. Their horses 
were now reined up obliquely, one pointing 
partly south, the other opposite. Eliot again 
broke the pause. 

“ I am unwilling to say 4 traitor.’ . . .” 

“ No, no. Or, yes, — traitor. As you will. 
Colonel Eliot, tear that paper to pieces ; ride 
back ; then shoot me down like a dog. Say the 
Confederates . . . Or, stay ; you cannot do that. 
I cannot do the thing myself, God help me ! I’ll 
ride rather to the other lines and find my death 
there. But give this up! Save the South! 
Spare it ! ” 

“ Clayton, I pity you.” 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


249 


“ I want no pity. I have kept my word. I 
looked for Confederate triumph, for peace, for 
help from England. The last hope is gone; 
and this is more than I can bear. You are a 
gentleman, Eliot. You will not see us trampled 

under dirty politicians’ feet If Lee holds out 

awhile, honourable peace must come, as many 
of the North wish already. I can’t bear it, I 
tell you. I am my father’s son, my mother had 
my promise : but I am also a son of Virginia. 

And they never foresaw this Spare us, 

Eliot ! Could I say more ? The South lies at 
your feet. Spare her.” 

“ Clayton, I say I am sorry for you. Turn 
back. You need not ride to our lines. But 
now let me by you ; you block my way, and 
time is going fast. Think this thing clearly. 
I have my plain duty. I wish to be consid- 
erate, gentle ; but now I leave you. No, no 
more argument or pleading. It can do no 
good. Why, — you are mad, sir ! Let me 
pass.” 

“ Your wife! Go back to your wife — you 

shall have honour, children, happiness I 

take all the disgrace Spare the South, and 

go back to your wife ! ” 

“ Clayton, enough of this. Now I command 
you. As a man, I pity you. As your superior 
officer, I order you to your duty. . . .” 


250 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


“ I ask no pity for myself ” 

“ Come, sir, enough. Let me by, or else. . . .” 

“ Ay, — or else ? ” 

— No more words now. Again, as at our old 
quarry, it was to be swords. Some chivalrous 
instinct of these two men, I imagine, rather 
than mere consideration of what might be ex- 
pedient, sent their haiids to the sword-hilt and 
not to the holsters. . . . The spirited horses, 
scared by ring of steel, began to rear and plunge 
about. Onset and rush of attack, perhaps a 
nobler mount, gave Eliot the better of this 
strange encounter. Slowly his enemy was 
forced back, over the crest of the ridge ; but as 
Eliot impetuously pressed on, he suddenly lost 
the firm outlines of opposing horse and rider, 
blurred against a background of road and trees. 
They were there, close before him, however, a 
dark mass ; clear-cut, himself, upon the northern 
sky, he rose in his stirrups and struck a furious 
blow, breaking quite through the futile opposi- 
tion of his enemy and crowding him away. 
One moment both horses swayed aside ; then 
with a shout the colonel swung clear and 
spurred for the plain, — a fraction of a second 
too late. The last stroke of Clayton’s sword, 
made doubly strong by the momentum of his 
plunging horse, could not meet that exultant 
foe, but it followed him ; with a cruel cut sheer 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


251 


through the back of his neck, Eliot fell dead 
into the road. 

Here, by all rule, is the end of my chapter, 
and the close of my epic. But I chance the 
anticlimax so as to tell a real story. — You have 
not interrupted me at all, young fellow, and I 
see you are wide awake. You knew dimly that 
your uncle was treacherously killed ; you didn’t 
know all this. Eh ? 

“No. And, Major, — pardon me. But how 
did you know it ? ” 

“ Well, my boy, I knew Clayton. One day 

I may show you his letter But wait 

awhile for that. Let me round up this horror 
now.” — 

Clayton somehow found the paper, and 
thrust it with trembling fingers into his pocket. 
With infinite pity, he laid the body under a tree 
by the roadside, his own cloak folded beneath 
and the dead man’s spread above. . . . Then, by 
well-known paths and lanes, remorse at his 
throat, he rode back, away, then turned, and so 
headed for the Confederate lines. The worst 
was done ; what else could he do for the cause ? 
Die, for his own part ; but what if another mes- 
sage like this, by other hands, were speeding to 
Federal headquarters ? It must come into Lee’s 
own possession, and at once. He spurred away. 


252 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


Now, speaking in defiance of rhetoric and 
romance, I say what a good thing it would have 
been for all concerned in the bloody business of 
that night, had it come early to their knowledge 
that the main document was really better lost 
than kept, was only a decoy, a mere ruse, cleverly 
contrived in Richmond ; that Eliot’s failure would 
only be a blessing to the Federal arms, saved from 
an audacious snare ; and that this pale rider, this 
lover of Virginia, desperately spurring south, had 
only thwarted a last hope of the Confederacy ! 
Anticlimax that, and full measure of it, and 
anticlimax can be tragedy. Was it anticlimax, 
though, the riderless horse come back, the search 
made, the body found, when they seized Clay- 
ton’s papers at the Hall and discovered a note 
hastily scribbled to me while we were all at the 
door, as this poor man thought he was safe in 
his scheme to ride off alone and save his South 
by bloodless treachery, and yet, mindful of our 
talk in the garden, wished one brother-officer, at 
least, not to think too meanly of him ? Was 
this note no anticlimax ? I was to open it next 
morning, not earlier, so the superscription ran. 
It set forth the tragic agony of Clayton’s case, and 
his resolve ; a wild cry not for pity, but for some 
shred of sympathy with his motive. “No one 
has guessed it. Thanks to the fools who chatter, 
and my cousin’s vanity, I am supposed to be 


THE EPIC OF THE FOUNDING 


253 


desperate over a match where, as I may only 
hope but can hardly predict, the wife will per- 
haps rise to the stature of her husband. He is a 
noble fellow. The sting of this lies in deceiving 
him. Tell him how it was, Heigh, — and think 
of me as kindly as you can.” 

Which of all the fools, I wonder, crowned his 
folly by letting Kriemhild Eliot see that note ? 



IV 

THE COMEDY OP THE FOUNDING 



I 


I thank you heartily, boy, for asking me no 
more questions. I shall go on with my manu- 
script ; it steadies me ; and I see that you are 
finely awake. Yes. We can now attend with 
single heart to our business; for, you see, the 
foundations are all laid, and we have only to 
build solidly and well that House of Cards. — 
Let me read again. 

Comedy, even according to Mr. George Mere- 
dith’s most exacting demands upon it, rhymes 
exquisitely with the second half of the seventh 
decade of our late century as it unrolled itself 
in this western world. America stepped to the 
front of the stage, hand in hand with Thalia her- 
self ; literally, of course, justifying her comrade- 
ship by the incomparable “ show ” of Artemus 
Ward, by Mark Twain’s new humour, and by 
occidental voices like those of the Heathen Chinee , 
but rising really to the height of its argument in 
the large jest of the situation itself. America, 
the America of old oratory, of revolutionary 
memorial, land of fair causes and ideals, set its 
s 257 


258 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


stern lips to the tragedy of an impending dis- 
solution ; the new America, bidding long fare- 
well to tragedy and to ideals, unlocked its lips 
in farce. It was a farce, to be sure, in the grand 
style. We had fought and bled, we of that vast 
army, we had spent unimagined sums through- 
out the land, to let loose a swarm of ignorant 
blacks who have since grown steadily in menace 
to our civic and our national prosperity, and have 
helped to give the ballot its primacy among our 
national jokes. We made grotesque exchanges : 
manhood like this Eliot’s, like that of a hundred 
thousand sterling souls, east, west, south, types 
like the great Lincoln himself, we handed over, 
all to death, and most to oblivion ; while we 
took in pay the new activity of shoddy million- 
aires, the ideals of corrupt politicians, and, at 
best, the honest but dangerous and stolid party- 
worship of a Grant. How the immortals, in or 
out of conclave, must have laughed ! If ever 
comedy took a nation and an epoch under her 
special patronage, America and 1865 can tell the 
tale of it. — Let me recall the facts. 

In that early summer to which we now go, for 
welcome peace, out of the din and smoke of war, 
many gentlemen of the Confederate service went 
flying all abroad to seek a modest wage in such 
distant hostilities as they could find. London 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 259 


clubmen ruefully paid their bets. The songs of 
battle died away; not the latest engagement 
fought in Virginia, but the latest and greatest 
oil-well “ struck ” in Pennsylvania, excited inter- 
est as news. The streets of our cities were filled 
with blue ; every teamster and car-driver had 
“ been with Grant,” and had brought back a 
coat. On the walls of public buildings could 
be traced marks of gas-jets and decorations for 
the display of triumph when Richmond fell ; 
and side by side with these were rows of nails 
and bits of framework where still fluttered shreds 
of dingy black crape. The conflict was all over, 
yes ; but the fever of it still went on, and the 
restlessness of four long years would not come to 
rest. It turned suddenly from huge operations 
of war, and found outlet in still vaster schemes 
of peace, — a railway over the continent, a cable 
under the sea. Business, growing in volume and 
leaping over its old channels, raised one higher or 
sank one lower as it rushed along. Where a 
man, well-to-do before the war, wrote fifty thou- 
sand, he now felt that he must make it half a 
million ; “ add a £ nought ’ or come to naught,” 
as Mrs. Willy Candoe — once of Boston, now 
married in Philadelphia to old Bishop Candoe’s 
son, herself a dangerous, witty person — as our 
Mrs. Willy said smartly to the Philadelphia 
merchant who laid this case before her, bewail- 


260 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


ing alike the vanity of riches and their coyness 
toward business folk of the old school. There 
were more crimes here in the East than we had 
ever dreamed about in ancient days; and yet 
they moved but a languid horror : it now took a 
very dismal treatise indeed to rouse and stir the 
weary fell of hair. 

Bustle, clamour, speculation, surged far and 
wide ; one spot, however, it all failed to reach, 
and that was Pomegranate Street in our Phila- 
delphia, — we pronounced it “ Pumgrant,” — 
particularly those three squares or so wherein 
to dwell was high respectability and peace. 
Fashion, so far as “new” people were con- 
cerned, was just leaving the neighbourhood of 
Pomegranate Street; the man who lived there 
because his fathers had lived there before him — 
and no one else could live there, when you come 
to think of it — snapped his fingers at fashion ; 
and fashion meekly took the rebuke. Let us 
look a moment at a gentleman of this happy 
and ancestored class. He has an office down 
Walnut Street near the wharves, but he is not 
very busy. He arrives late in the morning, 
reads his paper, and discusses with a bald- 
headed old bookkeeper the relative merits of 
sails and steam ; or else they sort out docu- 
ments to be laid in due time before the Alabama 
claims commission. Perhaps he has a few ships 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 261 

left, dodging about distant seas, ignorant of the 
end of the war and dreading a privateer. The 
counting-room is very plain. On the walls, 
otherwise so bare, hangs a spirited sketch of 
the Sally Adams after her famous voyage from 
Canton, hove-to off the capes to take aboard her 
pilot. A counterfeit Bank of England note, dated 
1830, hangs in a little frame. All is of the past. 
There is a map of certain suburbs in which this 
firm was once actively interested, a farm cut into 
lots ; it is now all solid brick houses. The con- 
veyancer who made it, and drew the deeds for 
it, now and then drops in, an octogenarian ; his 
occupation, t^o, is fast going. “ Convey ” the 
wise it call no more; big trust companies are 
beginning their reign. However, the lawyers 
still hold their old ways, their old repute. One 
of the ancient school is just coming now into 
the counting-room to see this lifelong friend, 
this merchant, this old acquaintance of our own, 
Nathan West ; and it is Judge Caraway’s habit 
daily thus to call for West and walk home with 
him for the two o’clock dinner in Pomegranate 
Street. The Judge you must know if you know 
any one ; look at him as he sits in Mr. Horace’s 
chair (Mr. Horace is always up-street at this 
hour conferring with the trustees of deceased 
Mrs. Horace’s estate), smiling at his friend. — 
“ Busy as ever, Nathan ? ” — They both chuckle. 


262 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


« You are working Thomas to death still, I see. 
Tom, why don’t you strike?” — Thomas Bandy 
the bookkeeper is properly amused ; he tells the 
latest enormity of that young and progressive 
merchant who is plastering the whole country- 
side with noisome advertisement of his wares. 

“ What are we coming to ? ” cries the Judge. 

“ Ah ! ” says Bandy, wagging his head. But 
Nathan bids them not to vex their souls. 
“ How’s your place at Bangor coming on, Hal ? ” 

“ Well enough, well enough. But how do 
you make grass grow under your forest trees, 
West ? ” 

West tells him to plant Kentucky blue-grass 
seed. “ Get it at Kinkey’s, mind ; only at 
Kinkey’s.” 

“ At Kinkey’s, eh ? ” repeats the Judge, vainly 
trying to put a bucolic touch to his fine old 
forensic manner. He has long white hair, and is 
shaved quite clean ; a fringe of collar breaks over 
the high black “ stock,” sending chin and nose 
toward heaven at a glorious angle ; observe, too, 
the brown gaiters and the check black-and-white 
trousers just a trifle too short. He is a dignified 
old gentleman ; but he has “ had his world as in 
his time.” He played cards with Clay during 
his single term of service in Congress : “ I rec- 
ollect, Clay used to...” and all that. Old 
West, not to be outdone, tells of days when he 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 263 


was supercargo on one of the firm’s ships, and 
saw the Anthropophagi, and was chased by 
Malay pirates. “We had to draw tompions in 
a hurry, Hal ! ” — and the bookkeeper again 
wags his head, and the office boy wonders what 
tompions may be, as he hands Mr. West and 
the Judge their hats. It is time for dinner. 
Together they walk to Pomegranate Street, as- 
cending the steps of two contiguous houses ; and 
they shake out their keys in chorus just as the 
State House clock is striking. Before they go 
in, they glance with critical contentment at the 
blinding white marble trimmings and steps, the 
raw, beefy, hard-scrubbed brick, the white 
shutters, the green alley gate, the street full of 
serious cobblestones and lined with deferential 
ash and maple trees, each set in its little board 
casing. A fishwoman comes up the pavement 
with a great wooden platter balanced on her 
head, and cries, in raucous voice, Shad — dh-h ! ... 
But Judge Caraway and Nathan West do not 
wince ; they know, good men, that the sun is in 
heaven and the shad in the Delaware, and the 
time for fish-house punch has come again. 

0 Philadelphia, old Philadelphia, it was 
good to know thee, even in that last, faint, fare- 
well flush of thy prime ! Indeed, it was a kind 
of Indian summer, the few years after the war, 
before the new riches and the new rich came in, 


264 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


before accents were imported and wealthy no- 
bodies got into the Assembly, and dinner went 
to the dark hour, and our best people took to 
living all over the earth. I think, too, those 
days were particularly welcome in their re- 
laxation of the stress and strain of heroism, in 
the absence of battle-talk, in the relief from 
constant gunpowder, and from evasive sugar at 
sixteen cents the pound. Particularly the de- 
scent from heroes to comfortable citizens ; that 
was grateful. Has not my first section of hero 
been a trifle too awful and noble and brave ? 
Do you not, reader who have no interest in him 
personally, feel a sense of relief now he is sent 
for good and all to the shades ? His photograph 
is nearly my most precious household god ; but 
do you or would you care for it ? You cannot 
laud that type of face, allowing even for faded 
lines and crude art of the old camera ; remark 
the obvious pose, the stare : long exposures, 
you know, brought most faces to a kind of 
idiocy Ah, put it away, put it away : — 

King Pandion lie is dead, 

All his friends are lapt in lead. . . . 

Let them stay there. We come to the House 
of Cards, a more cheerful matter. To what use, 
pray, could we put this Colonel, were he now 
alive in his old mood and fashion ? He would 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 265 


fit nowhere. That sort of hero would be too 
open, too obvious, too enthusiastic, with his on- 
my-brave-boys style ; he would at once draw fire 
from our cynical, humorous folk of the pen ; 
while with the pictorial daily papers, the writers 
of historical novels, even, he would fare quite as 
ill. He would be too reticent, too curt with re- 
porters, those arbiters of modern fame who like 
their hero not silent about his feats and always 
ready to drive in manful spite at the other 

admiral Let Eliot rest, perturbed spirit, in 

his grave, and let us come back to the cheer of 
Pomegranate Street in 1865. 

But can we enter ? Money could not take you 
into old West’s house, nor would respectable pov- 
erty bar you out, or uncouth garb. At the time 
of the Quaker yearly meeting, a rural contingent 
filled Nathan’s house with relatives in the most 
impossible costumes and of homely, rustic phrase ; 
incongruous they sat amid pictures and bright 
carpets, simply aware that the names of their 
forebears, identical with his, ran back to original 
deeds with the signature of Penn or of his dep- 
uty. This in April ; month in, month out, Na- 
than gathered round him mainly good church 
people and a half renegade kind of Quaker like 
me. With all these it was pleasant to consort. 
The Philadelphia woman — of that day — for 
choice ! She was not stupid ; but she stopped 


266 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


her talk at the marches of common sense and 
modern history. She knew French when she saw 
it ; and of course she dallied with music after the 
manner of all her sex. She knew the sovereigns 
of England and the families of Philadelphia. 
She was well-bred, kindly, sleek, a trifle stout ; 
the Pointed-Gothic style is not abundant in these 
parts. Scandal, — yes; why not? But she 
served her salad with a delicate mayonnaise, 
— if you must have vinegar and French dressing, 
go to the angular woman for it ; and she laughed 
merrily as she told her tale. Bless her heart ! 
You could talk at ease with her, and needed not 

brilliant epigram or paradox A plain story 

served. Again, there were few learned men 
among us. Harden Croudley, Wyeth, and the 
rest were unknown. There was the great Greek 
professor, to be sure, who had so wished a son 
that he might name him Homer Hesiod, and had 
to compromise with a girl and the disguised 
classicism of Lucy Ann. Few, too, were the 
literary folk; but those we had were sound. 

So, as you see, it was no light thing that an 
invitation for Linsey Cards to sup with the 
Wests fell on that memorable day when our 
army of the Potomac, or a respectable part of it, 
marched through Pomegranate Street in final 
parade. Horace West, spying the banker near 
’Change — his first visit in our city, he said, since 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 267 


1863, — haled that hardened New Yorker home 
with him to see the procession. — “ Come back 
this evening at seven, Mr. Cards, and take a plain 
supper with us Only the family.” So Na- 

than the hospitable. And Mr. Cards said he 
would come. 

Only the family. You know it ? Nathan, of 
course ; Miss Mary, his daughter, zealous in good 
works and the delight of her rector, the Rev. Dr. 
Blessys ; Horace, pearl of widowers, whom you 
remember at the wedding and who had been 
threatened with pneumonia and heart trouble in 
the drafts, an attack which Dr. Blessys called 
a providence and which Dr. Gullion now pro- 
nounced to have been a mere functional disturb- 
ance, ominous enough at the time, with some 
indications of a lesion . . . but happily a false 
alarm ; and Horace’s two daughters, the young- 
est just coming out, charming girls, particularly 
Dolly, whom, — thank you, Kriemhild, — I did 
not marry. And there was the widow, seldom 
seen of guests. Horace was really the greatest 
character among them ; somehow he always 
seems to me to have embodied our Philadelphia 
of 1865. I know that he is a spectacle nowa- 
days, and I am familiar with the stories of his 
senility ; young Hod Cards asks pathetically 
why such an old circus had to be poor Hod’s 
namesake and godfather ; but in those halcyon 


268 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


times few men there were who thought of laugh- 
ing at Horace. Only Mrs. Willy Candoe, who 
had her sarcastic and unnecessary way with so 
many, said things to him. Once, when he chased 
a bat out of the drawing-room at their country 
place, she asked him solemnly if he knew the 
meaning of fear ; and again she assured him he 
was a man to be afraid of nothing: each time 
her big, lazy husband choked down a guffaw. 
Now Horace was by no means a fool. In earlier 
days, when Daniel Webster was still thundering 
at the Capitol, there had been no more dashing 
young fellow in our parts than “ Hod ” or 
“Horry” West. Assembly, opera, any discreet 
little expedition behind a good horse, with a 
supper “ out the Old Road ” ; — of a surety Hod 
West was there. A selfish rake ? Not at all. 
Devoted to his duty even as keenly as Captain 
Reese, R. N., late of the Mantelpiece man-of-war, 
Horace was prodigal of time and trouble for any 
one with the slightest claim upon him. He 
would cross the street to ask a nursemaid, even 
an ugly nursemaid, how the neighbour’s sick 
baby was coming on. All the little girls adored 
him. One June day, for choice, he married 
Dolly Wentworth; settled in a snug house; and 
spent two hours more daily at the office. Twice 
the stork flew into his windows ; he had begun 
to wear roomier boots and waistcoats, to look 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING- 269 


annoyed when forward women ogled him on the 
street, and had acquired a particular little chirp 
of his own, with a “Thank you, Mrs. West, 
thanks, and my little girls are very well, — 
thank you ! ” when he had to revise the for- 
mula; for Mrs. West died. He sold the snug 
house, and came back to Pomegranate Street, 
quietly resolved never to marry again. The rest 
of his life, whatever that might be, so he told 
his friends, belonged to his children, — whom he 
handed over to his sister Mary. When the little 
one cried or fretted in his presence, he went to 
it, chucked it under the chin, smiled in a mel- 
ancholy fashion, wagging his head and saying, 
“ there , there , there ! ” — paternal to the life. If it 
continued to cry, he said, “Poor little mother- 
less thing,” nodded mournfully at his sister, and 
went on tiptoe out of the room. Occasionally he 
had an old classmate in to supper ; they retired 
to his den, smoking, chatting of their wild aca- 
demic youth, and sometimes singing Lauriger 
Horatius , his favourite ditty. Aunt Mary, down 
in the drawing-room, hears the jpoeula and oscula 
trolled out with great effect • she tells Mrs. Mal- 
strem that Horace gets such comfort out of his 
Latin! “Hod,” says Mrs. Malstrem, old play- 
mate and relative, “ ought really to have studied 
a profession. He is such a scholar ! ” — Horace 
knew everything, from the inside history of fami- 


270 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


lies to the times when principal trains arrived 
in the city. His wife had died when he was 
eight-and-twenty ; now, in 1865, he looked hardly 
a day older. He was a keen judge of sermons, 
preferring those of his rector, the full-bodied Dr. 
Blessys, with whom his relations both as friend 
and as vestryman were very close indeed. — “What 
a tact and facility the doctor has ! ” exclaims 
Horace to his companion of the moment, as they 
walk homeward up the street. “We were speak- 
ing incidentally the other day, the doctor and I, 
of canvasbacks and green peas ; not much room 
for theology there, you will say. Ah, but the 
doctor was equal to it. He closed our discussion 
about a rich man’s limit for luxuries, with a 
wave of his hand: ‘ Meats , my dear Horace,’ 
said he, ‘meats for the belly , and the belly for meats 
. . . and one Lord over all / ’ There were no ladies 
present, of course.” 

It was Linsey Cards to whom Horace im- 
parted this valuable instance of theological tact. 
It was not the sort of conversation which the 
banker used to have with Eliot; but, if less 
stimulating, it was far less disturbing. Bitter 
against Philadelphia in the old days, he now 
began to see a great light ; suppose he were 
taken into the fold ? — At any rate, Horace took 
him into the Pomegranate Street house to see 
the parade; and Cards was glad. Arrived in 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 271 

the square of sanctity, the two were now 
going by the open window of Mr. Huntington 
Moonby. A bachelor he, one of our few club- 
men out and out, with large head, flabby cheeks, 
staring eyes, and a shrewd, crooked, sniffling, 
swollen, boiled sort of nose : he had the right 
to be as ugly as he pleased (even, as that charm- 
ing French woman put the phrase, to “ abuse his 
privileges of ugliness ”), and as surly ; for his 
ancestor was next friend to Penn. A flag hung 
from the highest window of the house, although 
his own ruddy face was decoration enough. 
And of him, too, Mrs. Willy Candoe said things. 
At the play, conformably with his unbroken 
bibulous habit, he always sat at the end of a 
line ; and Mrs. Willy compared his face there to 
an illuminated initial. “ It’s the only thing 
about him that smacks of theology ; of course, 
he is medieval enough. But, then, it spoils the 
classical suggestion, doesn’t it, Dolly dear ? 
Otherwise, perfect Silenus. You’re just out of 
school, dear ! Do tell a stupid old woman what 
ought to be Mr. Moonby ’s botanical name l ” — 
She talked, too, of the poor man’s “bovine 
chuckle ” ; and once asked him to help her 
organize a Sunday-school in the new Unitarian 
church. But Mrs. Willy was always talking 
like that ; and who cared ? Not Moonby. 
“ She’s crazy, — that’s what she is,” he said. 


272 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


His emphasis of the unusual sort was always 
attained by such a sentence, without oath of 
any sort, spoken very slowly. Otherwise he 
swore profusely. Speaking of this inseparable 
bond between Moonby and his oath, Mrs. Willy 
once declared that he shared one characteristic 
with the “ meek mountain lamb ” in Walter 
Scott’s pretty poem about the Helvellyn wan- 
derer: Mr. Moonby would “draw his last sob 
by the side of his damn.” 

“ Mornin’, Hod, blank ye ! ” — Horace looked 
up and smiled. “ Ah, Hunt, good morning, 
good morning.” He waved an affable salute. 

Moonby’s club friend, a horses’ man, not very 
happy with ladies, asked who was the big chap 
with Hoddy. 

“ Dash my wig,” says Moonby, cocking his 

wicked, half-senile eye “ Why, yes. I’ve got 

him. It’s that blank banker. Used to live 
here ; errand boy ; Heighs ; Eliot. — Eh ? ” 

The clubman knew now. 

“ Cards, by blank ! You know what they 
say about him in Third Street ? Pellett the 
broker told me this man was a comer. He 
doesn’t fool with dead ducks like the old- 
fashioned bankers ; he runs things from the 
inside. Corporations are the thing now, Pellett 
says, and this Cards banks for the corporations, 
— gets money for ’em over the pond, and has 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 273 

all kinds of influence down in Washington. 
He’s coming.” 

Mr. Moonby went into an unwonted period 
of cogitation, and came out of it with resolve 
upon his face. « Billy,” he said solemnly, “ every 
dog has his day. Let’s look up this dog. He’ll 
be at Cousin Nathan’s. Come along.” 

Horace had stopped more than once to point 
out the glories of Pomegranate Street, and was 
therefore overtaken just as he opened his outer 
door; he made his introductions with all his 
suave felicity of phrase, and now paused a 
moment over the great Salve cut in the marble 
floor, — his own idea. Of course he told the 
story about his country cousin, which Moonby, 
who stuck to old friends, greeted with honest 
laugh and oath. To the sound of this merri- 
ment, our four patriots entered the inner man- 
sion and laid down their hats. It was a warm, 
delicious day ; in that early dawn of the peace- 
years one felt in truth the bliss to be alive ; 
and these four merry gentlemen had chosen the 
better part. To be dead down yonder in Vir- 
ginia was a mistake Horace was explaining 

how he kept his hat-brush and street gloves in 
one of the large chairs with hinged seat, while 
his father had privilege of the other ; pausing to 
take in this lucid exposition at the full, Cards 
noted the two doors on his right, leading into 


274 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


the great drawing-room, and on his left a smaller 
apartment, presumably dedicated to the muses. 
Books he saw through the doorway, and a 
writing-table, and the fireplace in vacation dress 
. . . and something more. In a chair that was 
drawn back from the window sufficiently to 
escape all prying looks from without, but with 
good command of the street, sat a woman 

quite alone, waiting for the soldiers Cards 

shivered just a shiver’s fraction ; then drew 
himself up, and entered at Horace’s heel the 
noisy room on the right. Noisy, or cheerful : 
as you will. Mrs. Malstrem w T as there, and 
Mr. Malstrem, and the rector, and sundry others, 
— a merry little set of friends who had played 
together, been confirmed together, gone to school, 
to dancing-class, come “ out ” or into business 
together ; so thoroughly one were they that they 
almost thought in concert, like Alice’s wonder- 
land folk, and made conversation a kind of gre- 
garious soliloquy. To them Horace presented 
his “ friend, Mr. Linsey Cards, — the friend of . . . 

precisely ” It kept him turning right and 

left like a joint of meat on a turnspit ; but 
Cards could do this sort of thing now. The 
only mark of the old beast upon him was a 
shade of superfluous ceremony. He has at 
last made his final bow at the final name from 
Horace, and is about to take a chair by the side 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 


275 


of Nathan West, choosing a safe phrase about 
shipping interests meant to swing the conversa- 
tion quite clear of Virginia and the evil days, a 
subject of which Mrs. Malstrem is evidently over- 
fond, when a silence and a holding of breath all 
about him check his design. By instinct he 
turns toward the doorway which he just 
entered. Kriemhild Eliot has come from the 
library, and is walking straight up to him ; she 
puts out her hand. “ I am glad to find you,” is 
her quiet word. “You ought to have come to 
us long ago.” 

Dr. Blessys once confided to Horace that the 
most difficult parochial task he had ever under- 
taken was his visit of condolence to Kriemhild 
Eliot after her return from Virginia. “ Her 
mood, my dear Horace, was extraordinary. She 
could not have been callous, — callous : oh, no, 
indeed ! But her feelings were under such re- 
straint. No handkerchief She fixed her 

eyes on my face. I spoke of the means offered 
by our blessed church to comfort those in afflic- 
tion I spoke of good works, of your dear 

sister Mary. But as I approached the actual 
loss, — the Colonel’s awful death, you know, — 
well, Horace, I hesitated. Horace, I think I 
was embarrassed ! ” — Horace ventured to doubt 
that. — “ Well, I felt that both tact and . . . yes, 
tact, advised me not to touch the subject at all. 


276 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


I did not.” And Horace remarked for his part 
that Kriemhild’s calm had been something terri- 
ble. Mrs. Willy Candoe called it “ uncanny ” 
and quite “ fifteenth-century Italian.” To mem- 
bers of his own family, Dr. Blessys, who felt 
snubbed, called it pagan, — “or worse.” 

Now it was Cards who faced this calm of the 
widow, looking at her, as his wont was with all 
men, eye to eye. Yet it was his gaze that fell ; 
he let her carry the situation for him, answering 
her questions about his doings and abidings for 
the past two years, while shrewd old West, the 
only person in the family who seemed to under- 
stand her, made a diversion by talk with Moonby 
and his friend. Then a bomb exploded. 

“ Mr. Cards is an old friend of mine, and he 
was the dearest friend of my husband. I wish 
him to watch the soldiers with me from the 
library window, — a few minutes. We shall 
come back afterward. You will excuse us, 
Grandpa ? Mr. Cards ! ” — And they went out. 
I, by the way, had been asked to bear her 
company ; but I was in the show itself, and so 
the lots fell upon Cards. It was interesting. 
Comment, of course, had no free field in the 
drawing-room, save in an exclamation or two 
from the* irrepressible Mrs. Malstrem. — “ That 
isn’t mourning , Cousin Nathan. What is it ? ” 
she said. 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 277 


“ Why, it’s Kriemhild’s way, and she shall 

have it Hunt, come sit near me ; there’s room, 

and Lily can see through you.” 

Mrs. Malstrem missed her retort, for behold 
the parade ! 

A noise of hurrying feet swept down the 
block. More little boys swarmed up more trees ; 
the local policeman grew very nervous. Then 
came a squad of his brethren, clearing the way ; 
and then the first of the military bands, loud, 
miscellaneous of note, clangorous. Then at last, 
like a dull, persistent undertone, was heard the 
tramp of marching men. . . . The Army of the 
Potomac. 

It breaks up my comedy, that tramp of march- 
ing men. I can laugh with all the cynics in my 
bookcases at all the doings of life, general and 
individual, now and from all time, only not at 
that monotony of our old marching ranks, march- 
ing hither and thither at the whim of fools, 
marching to wounds and death, and to their last 

triumph over a noble foe Here Thalia leaves 

us, and her sterner sister takes the word. But 
I have no skill to say it in however humble 
echo. 

So, in their own way, felt the watchers in the 
library, listening to the chatter from across the 
hall until even its careless note was silenced at 
the nearing of those thin, worn ranks. High 


278 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


officers came now, some looking straight over 
their horses’ heads, and some saluting left and 
right ; and the rank and file marched by. You 
never hear their tramp, as I do in my dreams. 
On they came, through rows of yelling men and 
women, with that dogged, even step which had 
carried them through the Wilderness, with that 
persistent tread rallying from rebuff upon rebuff, 
steadfast through defeat, pestilence, and despair, 
stolid tramp, tramp, of the union volunteers, 

which saved you all Cards felt his pulses 

beat heavily ; he dared not look at Kriemhild. 
Out of the other room came Moonby’s rasping 
voice. “ What a dirty-lookin’ lot. Where’s my 
substitute, I wonder ? And yours, Hod ? ” Regi- 
ment after regiment went by. Straight-sitting 
and silent, Kriemhild suddenly yielded to an 
irresistible shudder, then leaned forward more 
intent than ever upon the marching ranks. 
What she saw was a tattered flag, with blur 
of battle-autographs upon its folds, held proudly 
aloft by a mere handful of men. Steadily they 
stepped along, the Bay State soldiers, and led 
with them, saddled and bridled but unridden, 
their murdered colonel’s favourite horse. Cards 
knew and gazed. But the woman at his side 
did more, rising in a kind of salute, and stand- 
ing there, so it seemed, erect, proud, unmoved ; 
but as Cards too rose, and stood by her, even 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 279 


her reserve gave way : she began, though never 
so slightly, to tremble, and one hard sob broke 
from her lips. Cards put out his arm, and she 
leaned heavily upon it ; but still stood there 
silent until the last man of that whole brigade 
had gone by. “ Thank you,” she then said to 
Cards. “ You will excuse me now ? I forgot 
this. And you will come soon — soon — again ? ” 
She passed steadily out, down the hall, and 
up the distant stairs. Cards, closing the library 
door softly behind him, paused a moment or 
two ; then went to join the group in the 
drawing-room. 


II 


Mallem haec Mulier me amet quam Dii 

Cards had always led a decent life, and of 
late he had been, whether for his virtues or not, 
very lonely. Coming back to New York from 
Virginia, he went grimly to work. The tragic 
death of Eliot hit him hard ; but when the 
wound began to heal and the scar began to 
take its permanent form, he found, as everybody 
finds, that memory of the dead, however tender 
and loving, differs palpably from affection for 
the man in flesh and blood. Loyalty to the 
living fills one’s heart ; loyalty to the dead 
leaves spaces. There is now room in the inn. 
Feel your threnody ; write it down and publish 
it, — by all means publish it: you still have a 
welcome for good fellows who are not ghosts at 
all. Cards never dodged his own thoughts. 
Remembering this, and remembering that he 
had no illusions, as he would call them, about 
spirits who hover above our mortality and 
hands that shall be clasped beyond death, — 
that he saw nothing behind him but a dear 
memory, nothing before him but a life out of 
280 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 


281 


which he was to make what he could, once for 
all, — you can understand how things not to be 
considered while Eliot was alive came before him 
unrebuked now Eliot was dead. One thought, 
however, one shape, he hardly yet dared to view 
boldly and call by name ; although looking and 
naming would both come in time. And the 
time came as he paused in the hall between 
library and drawing-room in old West’s house 
that morning of the parade. 

In the evening, you may remember, he was 
bidden to sup with Nathan’s estimable family. 
They liked him. He had three qualities which 
win, — good presence, the assurance of bodily 
and mental strength, the promise of success. 
He passed the test and took his unwritten 
certificate ; was invited to come again. Soon 
he was coming in and out of the house as he 
pleased ; they had adopted him ; and his general 
position was now as sure as if one had granted 
him an equal date with the Andes and the 
Ararats, old Philadelphia families. And of the 
group which gathered in West’s house, his main- 
stay and social comforter soon came to be gar- 
rulous, pretty, plump Mrs. Malstrem. She was 
hot on the trail of Cards’s matrimonial future, 
and undertook to groom him for the race. It 
was her vocation. She was a devoted wife and 
mother respectively to Ossian Malstrem the 


282 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


elder and the younger ; what such devotion of a 
mother can accomplish is writ large in our great 
railway man’s career. Another son, Eleu Loro 
Malstrem, named after rich cousin Eleu, 
is now a poet of some repute. And you 
know Morven Malstrem, of course, who is in no 
business save that of a rich wife. But at the 
time of which I write, both Ossian, Jr., and 
Eleu Loro were unmitigated nuisances ; Morven 
was not born ; and Mrs. Malstrem was known 
as the pleasantest hostess and chaperon possible 
when nubile youth was convened and the two 
boys had been put to bed. 

One early summer night in Pomegranate 
Street she took supper along with Cards, and 
came with him back from the dining room into 
the great double parlour ; through the French 
door at the rear she led him out upon a little 
vine-covered porch, and the buzzing crowd — 
for Nathan had a hospitable board — was left 
behind in the drawing-room. From the midst 
of the trailing vines of the trellis near by, she 
picked a rose and held it out toward the banker. 
It looked like rank flirtation ; it was nothing of 
the sort ; and her own husband, gazing idly 
through the doorway, nudged Horace heartily in 
the ribs. “ I wonder who it is now,” he 
queried ; and Horace was not sure. “ We can 
safely leave it all to Lily,” was his sage reply. 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 


283 


“ The last week in June, Mr. Cards ! We are 
all moving out into the country to-morrow. 
This rose reminds me of it ; what does it remind 
you of ? ” 

“ Well, I think mainly of dear old Mrs. Heigh. 
I was out there yesterday. They were always 
kind to me ; and you know her rose garden.” 

“Her roses are no better than mine, which you 
shall see next week at Roadside, Mr. Cards. And 
it is very nice of you to think of old Mrs. Heigh 
when . you see a rose ; but . . . Here, take this 
one, and tell me what it says to you. Hasn’t it 
a message ? ” 

Cards was a trifle disconcerted. The husband 
pestered him about stocks ; here was the wife 
full cry on a flirtation; and he had grown pretty 
wary in this regard, as all successful men of 
money do. Mrs. Malstrem laughed out. 

“ You are a foolish man, do you know ? Don’t 
hold the rose as if it were a foundling baby ! 

Take its message, — but not from me , stupid 

I beg your pardon, — but you are stupid.” 

“Very,” said Cards, and laughed. She laughed 
merrily back. 

“ Now we are off,” she said. « And listen. 
The message of the rose is this. First of all, the 
war is over. You knew that? No, pardon me, 
you did not. Well, it says the war is over, and 
we are pasting down all the old pages with the 


284 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


names of those poor, dead soldiers, — not forget- 
ting them, you know, but pasting down the leaf. 
You listen ? ” 

“ Attentively ! ” 

“ Well, the rose says that. It says you must 
board near us in the country. Hunt Moonby 
will give you the particulars. Cousin Nathan 
has built his fine new house there. It is good 
air, — ‘ salubrious,’ don’t you know ? — and a 
nice neighbourhood. Spring water, and plenty of 
old shade. Old shade. — Do you love your neigh- 
bour, Mr. Cards?” 

“ Sometimes.” 

“Well, we must. The Bible says so. And I 
am going to choose a . . . some neighbours for 
you. I told you the place was close to Cousin 
Nathan’s? Well! Now let us drop the subject 
of your big self, Mr. Cards. We must not be 
personal, must we? And the boarding out 
our way is settled, isn’t it ? Good. Now one 
thing more, — as I say, to change the subject. 
Poor Kriemhild is so lonely ; we are all afraid of 
her. If you could only persuade her that the 
war is over ; could you ? Do try. Try now . 
Take the rose with you. — And come in fast ! 
My husband is grinding his teeth in rage, and I 
positively cannot have a duel between you ! ” 

In point of fact, Mr. Ossian Malstrem greeted 
them, as they entered, with his amiable grin, and 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 


285 


an incisive, “Hallo, — flirtin’ in the moonlight, 
eh?” uttered in tones that echoed his own boiler- 
works. Cards laughed and went straight upon 
his new errand, while the chubby matron fairly 
beamed with delight. “ I’ll do it, Oss,” she said. 
— “I don’t know what it is, Lily ; but I know 
you’ll do it,” was the admiring answer of her 
spouse. The piano was going now, and young 
people dropped in; Horace’s daughters, as the 
elder Weller would say, were “wery conform- 
able,” and that big room was known to be the 
coolest spot in Philadelphia. Thither came Mrs. 
Barrill Jones, who was all right, and Mrs. Scan- 
dent, who was not quite all right, having lately 
moved into Walnut Street from somewhere up- 
town. But she was rich ; Scandent was in 
iron, and gave huge sums to our church. Thither 
came even Moonby, deserting his club ; and his 
great growl went audibly about, triumphing over 
all conversation except the boiler-works voice 
of Ossian Malstrem. The Malstrems, every one 
knows, are of Swedish descent, very old indeed, 
and long ago married into the Penn-Gwynne 
family, whence a pleasant combination of Eng- 
lish, Celtic, and supposedly Scandinavian names. 
Ulric Galahad Malstrem, first cousin to Ossian, 
head of the house and the boiler-works, now lay 
stricken with some mysterious malady. 

“ How is Ulric, Oss ? ” asked Nathan West. 


286 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


“ Ulric,” roared Malstrem, as mournfully as 
might be, and with a kind of resolute melancholy, 
“Ulric does not seem to recuperate, I am sorry 
to say, — does not seem to recuperate.” 

Horace hoped that Cards had noted this 
excellent word ; but Cards was talking with 
Kriemhild Eliot, who for the first time in her 
widowhood remained now with the evening guests. 

“ Dear me, no,” said Mrs. Malstrem. “ Do 
you know, Cousin Nathan, Ulric has never been 
the same since Sally Ann died ? The tour in 
Europe did him no good. The doctors can’t 
make him out.” 

“ No,” and Mr. Malstrem closed out the account. 
“ No, Ulric does not seem to recuperate ; ” then, 
turning a point or two, he caught the gaze of 
Mr. Huntington Moonby. He grinned, and with 
the same voice in which Ulric did not seem to 
recuperate, saluted the clubman. “ Hallo, Hunt,” 
he said very wittily. “ Hallo, you loafer ! ” 

“ I’m not a loafer, am I ? Eh, Lily ? I toil 
and I spin, Lily, — and you don’t : the Bible says 
you don’t ! eh ? ” 

“No, — but you will be cut down and cast 
into the ov . . .” 

“ Lily, Lily ! the doctor ! ” and Horace pointed 
to the rector, easy in a comfortable chair with a 
fan and Aunt Mary and one or two more of his 
adorers. 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 


287 


“Well, Lily,” said Moonby, who roared 
with approval of this ill-flavoured jest, “you 
know my standing offer. Kill off Oss, and I’ll 
marry you.” 

And Mrs. Malstrem giggled softly, turning to 
her husband, and dropping her voice that the 
doctor might not hear, “ Oh, Oss, live forever ! ” — 
People didn’t talk like that in Boston ; but who 
cared ? 

And now Harry Harpy got some new music 
for one of the girls to sing, Harry Harpy, a 
Princeton College graduate and son of old 
Joshua Harpy of the dry-goods house of Harpy, 
Peedle, and Dugong, famous and ancient firm. 
Then came something sentimental . . . Soft o’er the 
fountain: such rot — do you know it? As vile, 
poor stuff as ever was ; but somehow I now and 
then ask girls to sing it to me for auld lang syne. 
They laugh at me. . . . Then there was more 
talk, with ho , ho, from Moonby and ha, ha from 
Malstrem ; and chatter, chatter, everywhere : I 
say, it was not Boston. 

Kriemhild Eliot was conversing quietly with 
Cards. She swept her eye over the scene. “ This 
is a fascinating existence to which I am coming 
back, is it not? You tell me that we both have 
a precious memory of Waltham’s death and what 
he died for. Well ! He fought and died for the 


288 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


God of his fathers, — let us say, represented by 
yonder noble cleric, who has just asked Aunt 
Mary where grandpa gets his port. Waltham 
died for home and fireside : consider the intelli- 
gent young Harpy and my cousin, bread-and- 
butter in the flesh. He died for our nation and 
its great future, — for Mr. Malstrem’s boiler busi- 
ness and that desolate man Moonby’s income.” 

“ But he died for all of us, and our welfare ; 

for you and me ” 

“ What do you mean by that ? ” 

Cards pulled up, overwhelmed with mortifica- 
tion. He had not meant to mean anything, 
though the phrase could mean everything . . . 

and she despised him 

No, she did not. He ventured to look at her, 
and her expression was that of one who has a 
problem to solve, but is not yet ready to state it. 
She turned to him abruptly. “ I should like to 
talk that over with you another time,” she said, 
to the utter mystification of Cards. “At any 
rate, how can I stagnate in this set ? ” A 
remark or two, then a query coupled with her 
name, sped now into this quiet corner from 
bolder souls among the friends of her youth, 
who took heart at the sight of her in ques- 
tionable shape. Was she not to be one of them 
again ? So, now, these daring conversational 
voyages of discovery came across the gulf of 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING- 289 


long respect for her reticence ; but to little good. 
She answered briefly, coldly, as if Mrs. Siddons 
were asked to play in farce ; then turned again 
to Cards with noticeable change of manner, with * 
touch of sympathy in look and voice. She 
essayed woman’s oldest and surest device in 
taming man, making him talk about himself. 
Cards fell easily ; his guard was down ; and he 
told of rebuff, struggle, triumph. “I don’t 
understand why men give in,” he concluded. 

“ When one is wise, one tries for the attainable, 
and, if one is brave, one gets it at whatever cost. 

I . . . but how many I’s have you heard from me 
already ? What an egoist ! ” 

“ Only egoists, in the good sense, amount to 
anything. I like to hear you. And so you set 
your mind on an object, and you get what you 
intend ? Well, that is life. There is no other 
good thing, is there ? No. And am I alive ? ” 
Cards hoped she would soon find opportunities 
for such vital efforts ; and as for being alive ! 
He could not tell her that her beauty, clearer, 
stronger than ever before, summed up a thou- 
sand lives. Perhaps he looked it, though ; and 
perhaps she understood. 

“ Will you help me gain some of my ends 
when I find them ? ” 

Cards was absolutely at her service. 

“ Haven’t you, yourself, some overwhelming 


290 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


purpose to which you are going to subordinate 
everything else ? That must be the real life. . . .” 

Cards, pausing to let the seconds pass, heavy 
and long, looked at her, paused again, and said 
at last : “ Yes.” 

“Why, that is right, indeed.” She smiled 
exquisitely. “ Perhaps I too, and one day, shall 

find my overwhelming and absorbing quest 

We shall compare notes, then.” 

Cards knew nothing to say, perfectly aware, 
amid his wonder over these extraordinary confi- 
dences, that what he most wished to say must 
not be said. She rose. “Well, you are coming 
out into the country, I hear. I am glad of that. 
It will seem like the old times. And when you 
talk to me, have no fear of mentioning Waltham ; 
with you I am glad to speak about him, you 
know. But we have talked long enough here 
and now ; and you must go over to my grand- 
father and amuse him He likes you, and I 

want him to like you more.” 

Pacing slowly back to his hotel an hour later, 
Mr. Linsey Attila Cards thought over all this 
intently, and came to two results. In the first 
place, she had singled him out from the rest ; 
had spoken as if he were her next friend. True, 
there was no touch of sentiment ; and such frank 
friendship is not what men wish in these matters. 
But he was at least the object of her rare gra- 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 291 


ciousness, and, it would seem, the only object. 
The other consideration was even more positive, 
evident: this woman was not the woman who 
had married Waltham Eliot. — If he had been 
an author, and lived in these days, Cards would 
have sealed his meditations with the remark that 
there must be psychological detective stories yet 
unwritten, and Comedies of Errors to be staged 
from the resources of dual personality. But what 
was this new Kriemhild ? A woman sorrow-ripe 
for passion of new experience and noblest uses of 
life ? Or was she now Our Lady of the Snows, 
and her friendship a chapel on the highest Alp ? 
— Cards did not care much for chapels. But he 
knew beyond all doubt that he cared everything 
for her. And the old phrase, remembered from 
some college recitation years before, kept sound- 
ing in his thought and in his dreams : I would 
rather ha/oe this womam, love me than ha/ve the gods 
love me. 


Ill 


Ten years had changed our countryside in 
no small degree. People came out for the hot 
months, not single spies as in 1855, but by 
battalions. Country places of an almost Eng- 
lish character sprang up here and there ; trains 
were more frequent ; and the suburban life, now 
perennial and almost preponderant, was then at 
least a summer fact. The Malstrems rented that 
house with the Virginia creeper, where once dear 
old Miss Patty used to sit so erect with the 
“ cape ” on her shoulders, — or was it a “ man- 
tilla” ? — and smile in her stately way as my 
Uncle Charles came slowly up for his afternoon 
call. Now, as one walked by the place of a July 
evening, one heard the roar of Malstrem, the 
chatter of his wife, the shrill bark of Ossian, 
Jr., cutting midway into adult conversation, and 
the hum and buzz of young folk flirting and talk- 
ing about the lawn. This Young America, scarce 
come to amorous age, as you must know, had a 
new smile after Appomattox, just as the Germans 
had a glorious smile after Sedan, and our mod- 
ern youth a tremendous smile after the great 
battle of Santiago. But then it was the Appo- 

292 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 


293 


mattox smile. The young fellows of 1865 had 
grown to manhood amid all the fifing and drum- 
ming of war time, though mainly not of the 
actual ranks; they wore, I remember, a white 
waistcoat of some stuff called “Turkish towel- 
ing,” shaggy, with an enormous gold watch-chain 
and dangling locket stretched right across ; repre- 
sentatives of their golden brotherhood gathered 
in some force, on the warm July nights, to 
meet coeval young women at this house of the 
late Miss Patty, now of very blessed memory 
and very limited example. A mile or so down 
the road was a boarding-house, once some bank- 
rupt body’s country place ; there, for the price of 
it and by the care of its keeper, only the better 
sort could abide, and there were Moonby and 
Cards. “ You won’t see me at the Branch for 
another month, Cards,” confided the former 
gentleman to his comrade at table. “ The pace 
is too fast for your Uncle Huntington to stand 
more than four weeks. And I know where to 
stop ! Look at me — forty-five, and sound as 
a dollar.” Then followed the buck’s familiar 
hygienic rules, interesting, but not to be quoted 
here. — Cards said that was certainly a sensible 
rule ; and when were we to start for the Mal- 
strems ? — They were going to drive there in 
Moonby’s dog-cart at a decent interval after 
supper. Moonby was not a pedestrian. 


294 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


An evening at the Malstrem place was not 
easily forgotten ; it was, as I have said, the noc- 
turnal Rialto of our suburban set, old and young. 
Cards had now for some weeks kept dropping in 
to join the more sober of the group ; and often 
found Kriemhild there, who accompanied her 
grandfather or even her Uncle Horace on this 
harmless pilgrimage to a place with which she 
had so many associations of her youth, her dear 
old aunts, her courtship and early love. On the 
piazza these quiet folk gathered, here in shadow 
of the old-fashioned white pillars, there in broad 
moonlight, — host and hostess, rector Blessys on 
his long vacation, Horace, sometimes old West, 
Moonby — who was vegetating, as he said, for 
an animal diet later at the Branch, — Kriem- 
hild, and Cards. Under cover of ponderous jokes 
indicating marital jealousy of the acutest form, 
Malstrem now made subtle pleasure for Cards 
by insinuations of a possibility which Mrs. Mal- 
strem directly prophesied as fact and everybody 
discussed with interest. Moonby said it would 
be a dashed good thing all around ; and his pro- 
tection of the banker was marked to the degree 
of flattery. To-night the young people were either 
scattered over the lawn, trying to play the new 
game of croquet by moonlight, or else they dallied 
in a pleasant gloom near the drawing-room piano ; 
the elders, as I told you, chatted pleasantly on 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 


295 


the piazza. Cards, indeed, could not fail to feel 
a thorough satisfaction with his position. Out 
yonder in the road he had stood years ago, a su- 
perfluity ; negligible everywhere, and supremely 
so in the eyes of young Kriemhild West. Now 
he sat by her side, welcome ; and not only the 
little group of her own set accepted him, but 
powerful names of the Philadelphia world were 
content to be written down near his own. For 
here, to-night, auxiliary to the piazza party, were 
men like Colonel Davis, and Felix Jappette, and 
Honore Freaksmith, the new poet and dabbler in 
criticism. As for Aaron Breitstein, whose grand- 
father had turned Christian and married into our 
set, Cards could almost patronize him. How the 
old Cards would once have spent his satire on 
this group, talking them over in Bostonese with 
Eliot ; and how suavely, softly, thankfully, he 
now accepted them as part and parcel of his 
new inheritance, adjutants and applauders of him 
in his designs for a vast House of Cards ! He 
was pleased with them all. Colonel Davis had 
never served in the army, douce man, but bore 
his title with an air even better than military. 
A widower of vast estates, he shot ducks from 
his blind at Rehoboth, and sent pairs of them to 
many a friend, sign of autumn as sure as the al- 
manac. He blanked his eyes with men and 
blessed his heart with women, and all together 


296 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


was as near the red-faced, fox-hunting English 
squire as American manhood, destitute of fogs 
and foxes, can attain. Sometime matrimony, 
great riches, and a permanent rural life differen- 
tiated him from Moonby ; he deplored his friend’s 
sedentary habits and aversion from shooting, 
prophesying woe; but to see him punch that 
growling, grinning sinner in the chest, whisper 
something hoarsely, and roar out a heaven-shak- 
ing Eh ? — to see Moonby screw up his face in 
appreciation of the whisper, then chuckle and 
cackle and roll his lobster eyes as retort courte- 
ous to the roar, — was to see two very pretty 
gentlemen. Felix Jappette was an amateur ar- 
tist and had studied in Paris ; Moonby and the 
Colonel enjoyed his pleasant talk about models ; 
and everybody liked to have one of his pictures, 
which he never sold. I remember getting into 
trouble with him over a rural scene he painted 
for my maternal uncle ; it was full of cows, and 
the cows’ legs wouldn’t come out even ; so I 
called the chief animal Felix’s Leap-Year Cow. 
And he said, go to a Quaker for art ! — I have 
had troubles all my life, you see, from this criti- 
cal instinct; perhaps they have told you how 
angry Shadgood, the epic poet, was with me for 
laughing at his Mexicad . . . . But Cards, at this 
period, was not critical; he even defended me 
warmly for my ascetic way, already deplored by 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 297 


the neighbourhood. I kept pretty close to our old 
house, where my mother was now a hopeless in- 
valid, — our old house, no longer holding its 
primacy. Nathan West’s new mansion made us 
look like a farm. “Oh, John drops in now and 
then,” said Mrs. Malstrem to Cards’s inquiry, 
“ and we dearly love to have him — if he’d stop 
harping on old General Charles and Aunt Patty, 
and if he would not be so sarcastic about politics. 
Oss gets right mad, — mad, I must say ; and 
Cousin Nathan doesn’t like it. John says Lee 
was the greatest general of the war, — think of 
that ! Why, it’s treason. And he reads and 
grubs about the old place. He’s too sarcastic. 
When Cousin Nathan had his housewarming for 
the new mansion yonder and they started a vis- 
itors’ book — quite English, you know, — John 
made up some verses that Felix Jappette and 
lots of people said were impudent, and wrote 
them over his name. 

“ Inhabit nobly, little build ; 

To climb is better than to cling ; 

Rejoice not that the cup is filled, 

But seek, though still in vain, the spring. 

“What does that mean? Horace says it’s im- 
pious and Emersonian . . . Oh, — and Kriemliild? 
John? He’s thrown things away! She’d like 
him, of course, to come here, and to see her more ; 


298 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


but she says John doesn’t approve of her 
now.” 

“ He did once,” interpolates the banker, and 
cannot help looking a trifle anxious. 

“That is all over. I know it. Don’t worry 
about that.” — So Mrs. Malstrem, consoling de- 
lightfully. 

Cards, therefore, sat on the Roadside piazza, 
this night in late July, at ease with all his world, 
and not at all afraid of John Heigh, not afraid, 
even, as I must admit that John Heigh was 
afraid, to the very border of insanity, of dead 
men’s shoes. Perhaps I may say for myself that 
I was more than puzzled at the comparison of 
this Kriemhild, imperious mourner, with the 
Kriemhild of long ago. I searched old philoso- 
phies, brooded, moped ; but what had made me 
dazed and mystified had made Cards bold. 

The men smoke placidly. Horace has intro- 
duced the topic of culture. New America, he 
opines, must love its book, buy its paintings, 
patronize literature and art. Mrs. Malstrem 
laments that Oss’s dear papa, who had old-fash- 
ioned notions, set the son so early to work at 
boilers and neglected things of the mind. “If 
you had studied Latin, Oss, like Hod, you 
wouldn’t have betted that box of Key West Par- 
tagas with Felix that Shakespeare wrote Riche- 
lieu.” And Oss growled. 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 299 


“Is this one of the famous Shakespeare Par- 
tagas, Oss ?” queried the rector. “ It’s good, any- 
way I” 

Horace covered a threatened conjugal discus- 
sion over the good taste of Mrs. Malstrem’s 
allusion — the rector, of course, was privileged — 
by a return to his topic. Malstrem, who always 
closed out a matter in his own way, effected a 
pleasant retreat by offering another cigar to Dr. 
Blessys. 

“Thank you, dear Oss. Not a second, deli- 
cious as they are, — not a second. Horace’s great 
namesake, you know, says we must cleave to the 
golden mean : aurea mediocritas , — eh, Horace ?” 

“ There, you see ! ” sighs the hostess. “ Here 
are you, Doctor, and Mr. Cards, and Horace, all 
scholars and college men, — and Hunt, too. You 
are half a college man, aren’t you, Hunt?” 

Mr. Moonby, who had fallen by the academic 
wayside through a decree of separation, rare 
enough at our dear university, but fairly forced 
upon an indulgent provost, spoke tersely of his 
detachment from ambitions of this sort ; but 
Horace, placating him with a “ Quite so, Hunt,” 
and a sympathetic look, proceeded to animadvert 
very feelingly upon consolations of the intellec- 
tual life. “ In point of fact,” he said, « as our 
good Hunt knows, that disposition runs in our 
family, much as I have disgraced...” 


300 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


“0 Hod!” 

“Well, Lily, I won’t make the mistake of false 
modesty.” 

“There is not a better read man than you, 
Horace, in the state of Pennsylvania!” — Felix 
Jappette stands by his friends. 

« Well, my grandfather was that, at any rate,” 
said Horace. “ He was an enormous reader. 
Down in the old library on Fifth Street they 
have his collection by itself; Jones calls it very 
wittily the ‘West Corner,’ though in point of 
fact it’s southeast.” 

“ I sometimes wish,” said Felix, “ that Jones 
would write down his good things. ...” 

« But then, grandfather didn’t go to college,” 
continued Horace, “and there it is.” 

He appealed about him ; and all except 
Kriemhild, who was gazing over the road at 
soft outlines of hill and wood, her face like 
some exquisite glimpse of a statue, only warm, 
instinct with purpose impossible to divine, — all 
were agreed that there it is. 

“ Every now and then I see a scrap of Latin ; 
for instance, ‘sweet and decorous it is for the 
country to die.’” Cards started a little at this, 
but his cynical smile expired in birth. “How 
often that has consoled me in war time, when . . . 
Kriemhild, dear, pardon me ! . . . Oh, the Latin 
sticks. I was graduated third in my class, Cards, 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 


301 


— that is what all this fuss is about, quite un- 
necessary fuss. ” 

Cards said, “ Oh, no ! ” and Horace responded 
with “Luck, then, it was, — pure luck.” And 
he went on : “I remember that Professor Beetle 
wrote a lot of the salutatory I had to give in 
Latin. Let’s see. It began — Quanto gaudio debe- 
mus , ‘with how great joy we ought...’ Now, 
bless me, if I remember any more what we ought 
to do with great joy ! ” 

“ Take a drink ! ” suggested Moonby. And 
laughter rewarded the devil’s advocate in this 
canonization of classics, waking up the rector, 
who started and said “ Quite so ! By all means ! 
Hah ! ” ignorant of the sentiment he thus backed. 
And with the movement came other diversion ; 
croquet-players, baffled by imperfect light and the 
shadows, came in for a song at the piano. And 
again Harry Harpy, late of Princeton College, hus- 
band-to-be of Dolly West, sang something very 
comic indeed. He asked first, “ Did you ever see 
a fly upon a wall ? ” repeating it rapidly a dozen 
times, wfith terrific jingle of the piano ; then, 
“ Did you ever see a w T all upon a fly, wall-upon-a- 
fly ? ” and so on with wittiest distortions. For an 
innocent song Moonby thought this very amusing; 
“ damn good, ain’t it ? ” he whispered hoarsely 
to Cards. But Mrs. Malstrem was whispering in 
the other ear. “ Horace,” she said, “ has some 


302 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


vestry business with Oss and the doctor. I’ve 
told her. Take her home.” Before Cards could 
rightly appreciate how all the machinery had 
been moved, he had left the babble and jingle 
and futility of that piazza group, and was walk- 
ing silent in the moon-flooded night by the silent 
Kriemhild. She was no longer in black ; Cards 
did not know the compromise, but he knew what 
new vitality sat superbly upon the exquisite fea- 
tures, upon the noble graces of her form, her 
poise, her motion. — Silent both remained for 
some time, a state of things not unusual for two 
clever persons who have sat out hours of vacuous 
merriment and gossip, above all, hours of Horace. 

“ How my Uncle Horace can bore,” she re- 
marked evenly at length ; “ and how copious he 
is ! That stuff about Latin, — and to you, a Har- 
vard man ! Uncle Horace couldn’t read a page 
of Caesar to save his immortal . . . culture.” 

“ Oh, your uncle is not so bad as that. I like 

him. He is so thoroughly the gentleman ” 

“ Why not ? ” 

— Cards bit his lip. 

« Now let us talk of something worth while.” 

“ With pleasure. And it shall be . . . ? ” 

But she did not answer at once. Finally, in a 
tone part hesitation, part pride, and all intensity, 
she said, looking up and about her, “ It was 
along this road I ran ten years ago to try to stop 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING- 303 


the duel. You know who was with me. You 
don’t know though how he laughed and talked. 

‘ Why not let them fight it out, like gentlemen ? ’ 
That was one chivalrous suggestion. Then after- 
ward, at our house, his remarks about you. I 
thought him a very noble and superior person. 
And I agreed with him that . . . that your ideals 
were not chivalrous.” 

“ I knew it.” 

“ And I hope you know what I think now — 
of him, of you. Then years, years, and at last 
the awful night, and the distracted morning. • 
. . . You were so helpful, so practically helpful. 
Grandpa and I talk of it — often. You did so 
much, — you did everything. I said to myself, 
when there was at last a self to say it to, that 
here was a man whom I had scorned for stop- 
ping a fight and saving lives ; and there — oh, my 
friend, if you could have stopped and saved then ! 
— and there, riding off to the enemy, a black 
traitor, was the high-minded officer and gentle- 
man who believed in the fine old feudal settle- 
ment of affairs of honour, — the Virginia cavalier, 
who came up behind his friend’s back and struck 
him dead.” 

“Well, — true.” Cards coughed nervously. 
“Still, one must try to be fair. John Heigh, 
you know ” 

“John Heigh, much as I like him, is a mad- 


304 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


man about this. He tried to defend that mur- 
derer — defend him! I forbade him ever to 

name the man to me again ! We had a scene 

I am sorry But . . .” 

“ Quite so. Heigh is fanatical now about all 
the southerners, — and has his troubles for it. 
But, then, after all . . . Those negroes, you re- 
member, said there were traces of a real fight, 
face to face ; and if the rain . . .” 

Linsey Cards, my lad, that is not the way ! 

“ Mr. Cards,” came coldly, “ you men forgive 
very easily, and are more easily convinced, — 
when your pockets are not concerned. ...” 

Cards murmured apologies, protest. . . . 

“ No, no. Let us not palter with the thing in 
this silly way. I thought you of sterner stuff. 
Those negroes ! Don’t you know he was of the 
county, a Clayton ? No, it was murder, cold and 
deliberate ; and you all said so then, and you 
know it now. Our dear cousin, if you insist on 
the relationship, gave a beautiful illustration of 
his theories in 1863. Can we not let him feel 
how we appreciate it ? . . . Mr. Cards, I can’t 

keep up this sarcasm My heart is bleeding. 

Is there no justice, — no justice, — for me, for 
us all, and against him ? ” 

Cards had often heard that all women are 
subject to a hysterical obsession which calls im- 
peratively for the soothing ministration of a 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 


305 


strong personality, preferably a man’s, to heal 
and calm. 

“My dear Mrs. Eliot,” he began, “I don’t 
say that we can forgive Clayton, though I am 
bound to tell you that it would be better for us 
if we knew all the facts ; but we can forget 
him. . . 

“ Forget ? ” 

Cards never met just that note in any human 
voice before or since. How he would have 
answered it, he could not say ; for just then the 
sharp trot of a horse and the click of rapid 
wheels was audible close behind them ; the 
odours of a strong cigar floated by ; and pre- 
sently Silenus Moonby was speaking at their 
ears. 

“ Get down and open the seat,” he growled to 
his groom, who was quick to transform the 
dog-cart into an affair for four. “ Drive ye both 
home,” he went on affably. He made no jest ; 
and indeed he took the whole thing seriously, 
stamping it with his approval. He had been 
awed by the widowhood of Kriemhild, and as 
a connection of the family had curtly forbidden 
from the start all jokes about the frustrated 
nuptials, showing an unprecedented reticence on 
the subject. “If you want oil,” he explained 
at his club, “ dig where there’s oil. This ain’t 
a jokin’ matter; family, too. — Your deal, Jim.” 


306 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


Now he found Cards an admirable solution of 
the case; and he intended to be on the sunny 
side. He had heard great men of railroading 
and finance speak of Cards with a kind of 
adoration ; that settled the thing for Moonby. 
And it was with unusual dignity that he now 
displayed himself, touching no trivial themes. 
He made a broad and general apology for the 
Malstrems and their deplorable lack of retenue. 
“They talk too confounded much,” he said. 
“ There’s Oss, banging away at you about stocks. 
It ain’t decent. And Lily, — well, she’s witty 
and nice ; but she talks too much. Some people 
can’t hold their tongues. — Well, Kriemhild, 

here’s your step. Thank ye, Cards ” 

Cards said good-bye on the piazza, Moonby 
waiting, statuesque as might be in his posture, 
and kindling heaven only knows what number 
in the series of daily cigars. The groom stood 
stiff, vigilant ; and old Nathan appeared on the 
scene. “ Come to church next Sunday,” said 
Kriemhild, in a low voice, “ and drive back with 
us to dinner.” Cards took her hand, held it for 
the alternative period named by Mr. Browning’s 
gentleman, who assumed, contrariwise to Cards, 
that all was over; and then left her with her 
grandfather, who repeated the invitation to 
dinner on Kriemhild’s hint, cordially, and in- 
cluded Moonby, with the usual jocosities which 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 307 


that old buck always evoked. Cards climbed 
up to his seat. The moon shone clear upon the 
fresh gray stone of the house, on the recent 
shrubbery ; it lighted up the old man with his 
black dress, his snowy hair, and the tall woman 
who stood close to him in that tender affection 
which she manifested towards him alone. 
Cards looked hungrily at her ; her superb 
beauty was revealed best as they parted; and 
she had seemed to cry to him for sympathy. 
He could have remained hours in that warm, 

spicy air, simply gazing at her Moonby 

rose many degrees in the regard of his com- 
panion as they drove rapidly home, maintaining 
a discreet silence, broken only by one or two 
inquiries directed to his groom and a common- 
place to Cards. Moonby, blank it all, was a 
man of the world ; and when it came to char- 
acter, he knew an oak from a gooseberry bush. 


IV 


Moonby’s reticence, however, was put to a 
test greater than it could endure, when Cards 
came to him on the Sunday morning, and an- 
nounced his desire to attend divine service in the 
neighbouring church. 

“ Not goin’ to church ! ” Moonby gasped the 
words; it was so uncanny. After a late and 
somewhat erratic breakfast, he sat in the grove 
before the hotel and watched people depart upon 
their amiable ecclesiastic follies ; they knew no 
better. His arm-chair was tipped against a tree ; 
his pocket was full of thick, black cigars ; a 
pink-coloured sporting paper was dangling from 
his hand, and the fresh breeze of July played 
through his sparse locks. “ Not goin’ to church ?” 
— He knew but three reasons for such a course : 
your women could make you; you might be a 
hypocrite ; you might be a fool. Cards was 
neither hypocrite nor fool, and he had no . . . Ah ! 
Moonby’s frown relaxed, and a broad grin suf- 
fused those coppery features. “ Aha ! ” Silenus 
bit the end from his cigar, rejected it, and smiled 
at Cards. He had been taken off his guard ; it 
308 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 309 


was early in the day ; solemnity was impossible. 
He smiled again, cocking the wicked eye. Cards 
ought to have been angry. He only smiled back, 
shook his head at a proffered cigar, and said : 
“ After dinner I’ll trade you. I’ve some fairly 
fine chaps myself.” 

“ After dinner. Well — that will be at Cousin 
Nathan’s. Well, we’ll trade then.” He resumed 
his dignity, and recommended the short cut to 

church. Cards thanked him He knew all 

the short cuts of this region well enough. 

There it was, indeed, with the ivy and the 
great willow before the door, and the woods 
behind, our pretty little church. And there was 
Horace, who led the banker to a pew just in 
front of Nathan West’s family, now a populous 
and promising affair ; Harry Harpy is with them, 
and is meditating on an agreeable ceremony in 
immediate prospect. This neighbourhood of the 
clan flattered our hero’s even pulses, and warmed 
his heart. He likes Harry Harpy, who is not 
very far from an ass. He likes everybody. 
He is prepared even to like the sermon, and 
fixes his eye respectfully on the meaningless 
and flabby features of our rural rector, Rev. 
George Scott Bolto, — rector, alas, for many, 
many years. All else in the church has been 
renovated, — pews, chancel, roof, tiles, organ, 
choir : all is new save Bolto and his sermons. 


310 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


Yet this Cards, once a plunger in finance and 
an obstreperous infidel in religion, Conservative 
Cards, as they now call him, is prepared to take 
church, Bolto, sermon, all in the day’s work. 
“ And I said his opinion was good,” or rather 
his instinct. To my mind there is no sight of 
these latter days at once so comforting and in- 
structive as the sight of a financier in church. 
Probably Kriemhild Eliot, who sat behind Cards, 
felt something of this harmony between the 
great power of the past and the great power of 
the present; at any rate she was interested in 
power, and Cards could well sit as its deputy. 
Erect in his deference, with his strong head, his 
firm jaw, marked, cheek and chin, with that 
bluish tint of dark men who have to shave daily 
and close, he spelled determination, security, 
power, — above all, power. She looked at him 
well, and was content. Suddenly our new choir 
reminded her that she was worshipping ; they 
chanted in superb style the Te Deum ; and invol- 
untarily she bowed her head, closed her eyes, 
and saw a vision flashed from the past. She 
sat in the old church again, her old self, amid 
the old surroundings ; and the boy from Boston 
held a prayer-book with her ; and it was in the 
Te Deum that they two read . . . When thou toolcest 
upon thee to deliver man The book had trem- 

bled a little, and she looked at him, and his eyes 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 311 


were wet. Brave eyes ! She saw them last at 
the good-bye ; a few hours, and they were closed 
forever. Old superstition affirms that if they 
had opened then, they would have held the pic- 
ture of the murderer Ah, not the Te Deum , 

ye friends there in the new choir ; chant us the 
Commination Service ! — When she lifted her 
head again, those violet eyes of hers held no 
tears, but were hard and bright. And she still 
looked at Cards. 

As for Mr. Bolto’s sermon, not five worship- 
pers heard it through. And the little birds sang 
east and the little birds sang west ; and when 
the glad surprise of benediction sent us all out 
into the sweet air in a certain bliss of emigra- 
tion which made even devout old ladies look 
wanton, Cards knew of a surety it had been 
good to join with the respectabilities of this 
earth in a feat blasphemously declared by 
Carlyle to be more audacious than beer. 

The stars in their courses fought for Cards that 
day. He drove home with the family ; and the 
publicity of it all, in this our most fashionable 
suburban summer church, sat like flattery upon 
his soul’s threshold. At dinner, again, he was 
made to know that he was free of the guild, 
no longer on probation ; the sense of common 
nutrition, one of the fundamentals in every 
social process from the very beginning of society 


312 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


itself, was keener in its delight than that other 
sense of common worship. Something in the 
air suggested a tentative adoption of him by 
this charming group ; he was no longer “ enter- 
tained ” ; he might belong there, — as Kriemhild 
chose to settle the affair. His hopes were taken 
for granted. The House of Cards was building ; 
and its lines were indeed cast in very pleasant 
places. He thought of its mere physical sur- 
roundings, as he had determined them in his 
drive from church, — deep clover fields, a while 
ago drenched in dew and now drunk with sun- 
light; brooks that flowed over stretched and 
quivering grasses; laden orchards and pleasant 
groves and the young corn vivid in its early 
green. . . . Here he would build his House, and 
found his sturdy line. Then, in a reaction, came 
back the sight and the scent of the landscape of 
his strenuous time, of his college days ; those 
barrens of New England and that salt tang in 
their air, the rocks, the glimpse of sea. And 
Eliot’s talk came back to him ; not only the 
visions of those college days, but later reminis- 
cence, — how the soldier had cheerily faced 
hunger and cold, and dangerous visitings of the 
picket-line in night, in pelting rain, and how he 
had been wounded in a random skirmish, pitched 
from a runaway horse into a copse, whence he 
crawled into a deserted schoolhouse, bound up 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 313 


his wound with a handkerchief, and so spent a 
whole Christmas day wondering when and if 

relief would come Cards turned to his 

neighbour, secure in the conversation all about 
them. “ Just why,” he said abruptly, “are we 
here and all those brave fellows underground?” 
— Questions like that were not as abrupt in 
the summer of 1865 as they would seem to us 
now. 

“ Ask Mr. Bolto.” 

“ Did he preach on compensation ? ” 

“ Do I know ? Yes, I think he aimed his pop- 
gun that way But compensation and those 

brave men underground, as you put it, is really 
a brave theme. Let us discuss it alone — it 
hardly goes with this ice-cream — after dinner 
on the lawn. Bring your cigar.” — It sounded 
almost like the command of one’s betrothed ; 
and the thrill of it went along his veins in the 
track already made by a decorous glass or two 
of the generous wine. 

With whatever regret, Uncle Horace promptly 
and silently renounced the pleasure of an intelli- 
gent after-dinner talk. He saw his duty, sighed, 
and did it, going off to a piazza corner with the 
wily Huntington Moonby, now a delighted acces- 
sory before the fact in our banker’s amorous 
assault. The rest of them scattered here and 
there, Cards hardly knew how ; and without 


314 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


fuss of any sort, lie found himself in an exquis- 
ite privacy of shade — Mrs. Malstrem’s roguish 
“ old shade ” — and turf and rustic seats, alone 
with Kriemhild. It was his own omission, how- 
ever, that he was without the suggested profa- 
nation of a cigar. The early afternoon was hot, 
although a bank of clouds in the western sky 
promised some relief. In this intensity of 
brightness and heat spread all about them, they 
two, despite their protecting shade, seemed to 
take an almost intolerable clearness of bodily 
outline and to demand some inward agitation, 
personal if not tragic offset to the insistence of 
nature. 

“ You had something to tell me.” Cards dealt 
rarely in commonplaces. In this glare, beating 
all about and beyond them like a sea, they were 
to resume the broken conversation of the cool 
moonlight walk three days before. Surely no 
hysterics now! Yet their islanded propinquity 
had less of the intimate than he had expected ; 
he seemed to talk to her from another world. 
And she made no direct answer. 

“ I congratulate you,” she said ; « late, perhaps, 
but sincerely.” 

“ On...?” 

“Oh, this railroad affair — the bonds — Lon- 
don and Washington. Grandpa was enthusiastic 
about it. And all since I saw you! It isn’t just 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 315 


money, money, money, they tell me, like the 
banging on Mr. Malstrem’s boilers, but a kind of 
power, control ; so they say. Isn’t that right ? ” 

“ They flatter me unduly, — but in a way, yes. 
My plans, you know,” — looking at her with a 
kind of grave eagerness, he spoke as he would 
have spoken to no other living person, — “my 
plans, between you and me . . . yes, between you 
and me ...” 

“ I appreciate that.” 

“ I hope so My plans are not of to-day and 

to-morrow. I do aim at power, at what you call 
control. This is 1865. About . . . well, about 1880, 
come to me, and see. It is not a picnic, you 
know, my business. There are some bad rocks 
ahead, and sundry whom we know are putting 
on far too much steam ; trouble is due, not long 
hence, for people who tie down the safety- 
valve. But in good time, — well, I put it about 
1880.” 

“How odd that sounds. We shall be — I 
shall be — tottering with age by then. But now, 
here and now, you have some of this jpower , 
haven’t you? I am thinking of that.” 

“ Oh, but we must not talk of my poor am- 
bitions. Your question ...” 

“1 am coming to it. And I am interested in 
what you call your poor ambitions, much inter- 
ested.” 


316 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


“ I should like to think you can approve . . . 
and further ... all of them. You . . .” 

She looked at him, then away. “One moment, 
please. That power of yours. See, my grand- 
father told me that you had more real influence 
with the government at Washington itself than 
nine-tenths of the senators and public people.” 

“ That is a huge word ! ” 

« But true ? I am asking you because I care 
everything for power, — and for powerful per- 
sons. What else is there ? ” 

He must be a highly favoured man to get such 
talk as this from such a woman. Yet it did not 
ring like love. Clearly she wanted something 
which he could give or do ; more than clearly, he 
wanted herself. It was not his habit to dally 
with a situation. True, in business he always 
forced the other man to make the first propo- 
sition. This was a different affair. 

“ Any power I have or shall have,” he began 
resolutely, though with a little pallor in his face, 
“ is yours for any purpose. ... No ! One mo- 
ment. Then you can send me off.” The fire 
came into him now ; these strong, dark men are 
never at such an advantage as under the stress 
of unwonted emotion. She looked at him with 
something of a new interest. 

“ I have no wish to send you off ” 

“ Wait a moment before you say that. See ! 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 317 

You and I loved Waltham Eliot; but it was in 
another world. You were a girl. I was . . . never 
mind what I was. We both now love Waltham 
Eliot — of that old world. But in this our own 
new world, now, — you another woman and I 
another man — I ask the woman’s love. Will 
you give it to me?” 

“ I knew ... I expected . . .” She looked at 
Cards dreamily for just a moment ; perhaps girl- 
hood was making its last appeal, and the old 
love refused to go without a sterner dismissal. 
“ I expected this.” 

Cards recoiled in dismay at the commonplace 
coolness of the phrase, ill-boding as it was. 
“ No,” she added hastily ; “ don’t misunder- 

stand me. I am not trifling with you.” 

“ My answer, then. I ask you to be my wife.” 
The words laboured out ; but they were of the 
quality women are fain to hear. Women ; not 
girls, perhaps. The hot afternoon, the blinding 
sunlight, and the vast ripeness of things all about, 
touched stronger instincts. In the trite but true 
old phrase, Cards was hungry for this woman’s 
love. Hunger after righteousness is a hyperbole ; 
and if one may venture to say so, not too happy 
a metaphor. That old psalmist found the inevi- 
table and only trope for spiritual yearning, and 
it was not hunger. Hunger asks food ; and food 
is torn down in the chase, or else grows ripe, lus- 


318 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


cious, under just such hot suns, in tempest rains, 
from soil rich and black. It is a far cry, but 
not a false cry — for the world approves it — 
hither from virginal dreams of sunrise upon 
snows, of ideals, renunciations, long quests of 

knighthood, the girl’s lost paradise of love 

“ Will you be my wife ? ” 

She answered slowly, holding up a hand of 
strange warning all the while. “Yes. I think I 
could be your wife. A real wife.” She looked 
at him. “ I am not so cold as people may tell 
you. And you are a man with whom women 

do not trifle No, no, no ! Wait. Wait. . . . 

There are conditions.” 

“ Conditions ! ” 

“Yes. You... must help me pay my debts. 

You are co-executor, you know ” 

“ Debts ? Why, your estate ” Cards pulled 

up short at the ridiculous sound of the words. 
“ Debts ? What debts ? ” 

“ You think of none ? ” 

“ No.” 

“How easily men forget! And the other 
night ... come, you have reminded me that we 
are not boy and girl. Hear me; and when I 
have finished, you can unsay, if you will, all 
those . . . those brave words about love. If you 
knew how women love ! — Yes, I can be a wife, a 
wife proud of you and perhaps able to make you 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 


319 


proud of me But I begin no new life of that 

sort until the old life can be put away without 
shame. I begin no new life until George Clayton 
is brought to justice.” 

“ Your cousin ? ” 

“ No. My husband’s assassin.” 

Cards leaned back. He was used to a life 
of bargains, give and take ; and this bargain, 
whatever its rewards, however wild it was, 
and whatever its source, put him on the 
defensive. 

“You mean,” and there was an involuntary 
frown upon his face, “ that you will marry me if I 
shall catch that man, have him court-marshalled, 
and shot ? ” 

Cards always stated propositions very clearly, 
both to himself and to others. This was brutal 
clearness. But there is also an almost insuper- 
able objection, for men of his habit, to the ven- 
detta. It is not one of our institutions ; nor is 

Columba a typical American woman And 

that hunger, which Cards just now had felt so 
overmastering in its power, for a moment was 
forgotten, and the psalmist’s mood came over 
him : the metaphor of mere appetite failed ; in- 
stead there rose — however faintly he felt it — a 
thirst, a thirst for pure waters, found not in that 
rich, black soil, but on barren mountains and in 
silent upland forests, by gray old granite rocks, 


320 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


remote from men. Now it was his turn to domi- 
nate the situation, and hers to plead. 

“I belong to the Old Testament,” she said 
with a pathetic effort for the light touch, — “ or 
to the other things, you know. Judith ; Judith 
was a widow. Oh, I cannot give it up ! Are 
you a coward . . . ? No, no. I unsay that. But 
I have built so on this ! Will you not help me ? 
Waltham, you know, — I thought how poor 
Waltham . . . and you and I ... You and I ? ” 

The blood of Linsey Cards still ran, however 
slowly, against any scheme of legalized revenge ; 
but no longer against this woman who proposed 
it, who pleaded for it, who could not live with- 
out it, and who said “ You and I ” with such 
appeal, — and who, this he knew well, would 
insist until it was done. No compromises. And 
she conquered. She conquered, of course, and 
mainly through the cry for help. Metaphorically, 
she had dropped that barter and commodity 
from her hand, and simply stretched out her 
empty arms. Literally, she had leaned back 
a little as she appealed to him, and there was 
just a hint of tears. In her eyes, moreover, he 
saw a greater hint than that of tears. What 
all his subservience and ardour and desire had 
not done, his frown, his resistance, his assertion 
of superiority, had done at last; he saw in her 
eyes the need of him and a permanent desire for 


THE COMEDY OF THE FOUNDING 


321 


him, the love of his strength doubled because 
his strength had dared to baffle her. “ I will be 
a true wife to you,” she said. The word went 
through and through him. He sprang toward 
her ; and again she held up that warning arm. 
“ You will help me ? You will not leave me ? ” 

This time there was no doubt in his answer. 

To my taste, the curtain should fall here upon 
x our comedy. But I know well what the con- 
ventions and the rules demand ; and you are 
free to shift a rapid scene, set the stage for the 
piazza of a great country-house, send right and 
left for the other players and give rapid cues 
for one and all. Ring Moonby out upon the 
stage, that black cigar jaunty as ever in his 
mouth, and triumph in all the wrinkles of his 
face ; ring in the Malstrems, dropping a visit on 
their afternoon stroll, although I don’t think 
anything short of a premonition of this happy 
moment could have brought our plump matron 
through such heat ; bring Horace, Aunt Mary, 
the daughters, Harry Harpy, all. Grandfather 
Nathan shall stand, blessing us, in the middle 
background ; and, in full light, the happy pair, 
founders now at last of the House of Cards. 
Smile, people all, smile, smirk, and pose as befits 
the comedy’s end. But I insist on one thing — 
hurry. Unless you look sharp, my friend, those 


322 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


clouds in the west, of which I was careful to 
speak, will shut out our view with sheets of 
white tempest rain, and the crashes of thunder 
will drown those little human chirpings of con- 
gratulation But this is merely meteorological. 

I mean no mischief. The thunder is innocuous 
so far as promise of the great House is con- 
cerned. You see it standing there now ; you see 
its founder still active, happiest and most pros- 
perous of men; you see its children and chil- 
dren’s children, a sane, brave race. No, if the 
thunder has any meaning, it is for the little 
tragedy which I must thrust in here, artlessly 
enough, as I suppose ; for it has no surprises. 
You almost know what it is before you read it ; 
and that is my only meaning in the clamour of 
storm and rain. Earth laughs with the lucky, 
the cunning, and the strong ; but heaven, so the 
old stories tell us and so some of us are still 
fain to believe, weeps for baffled nobility of 
purpose, for the tragedy of simple goodness, for 
the lost ideals, and the great causes that are 
foiled by fate. 


THE TRAGEDY OF THE FOUNDING 



I 


Again, dear boy, you are most considerate, 
refraining from question and comment. I have 
indeed but little time to end my task. That 
cockcrow meant a far glimpse of dawn, and 
dawn sends ghosts to their place ; we have only 
ghosts to deal with in this bit of tragedy. We 
must ride fast and far with them : die Todten 
reiten schnell. Then we must ride back here to 
breakfast, to be near the House again, whither, 
indeed, you proceed in person so soon to learn 

your own fates And I am sure that after this 

tale, so far as it has gone, you begin to see why 
Cards has such an affection for you, why he 
wishes you in the House ; do you guess now, 
moreover, why his wife seems to you such a 
sphinx, — gracious, but speaking so seldom to 
you, and watching, watching? I don’t under- 
stand women ; ask M. Bourget about them. But 
I understand Cards. 

And how did I come at these intimate facts ? 
Was I out in old West’s garden that Sunday ? 
What do I know of the mind of this poor Clay- 
ton, of his wild ride, after the murder, to the 
325 


326 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


Confederate lines ? Well, did I not know much 
about that wooing, hear much about it, see some 
of it ? Did not Cards and Kriemhild, not long 
after, in the shadowy days, make me almost their 
confessor ? You see what they think of me, and 
what they take from me. And have I not . . . 
ahem ! . . . a spark of the artistic and inventional 
about me ? . . . As to the Virginian and what I tell 
you now, would to God I knew less and invented 
more ! There are letters in yonder desk. 

Somehow, as I think of Clayton spurring off 
southward that night, with tragedy at his heart’s 
heart, I see the Lost Cause itself vanishing into 
the limbo of things that could not be. I fought 
those men; I would fight it all over with them 
to-morrow ; but I respect, honour, admire them. 
And for Clayton I have only an infinite pity. 
Poor inverted patriot, I can see him mount his 
horse, the paper thrust into safety as if it 
were the fate of all his brethren given him to 
bear and not to share, and then ride down the 
pass while masses of fog creep along hillside and 
wood. In the blank misery of his thoughts there 
rang one word of consolation ; « it is the cause, 
the cause,” he kept quoting, remembering to his 
own surprise, certain modulations of voice with 
which an actor of that time mouthed the words. 
He knew his way, mantled as it was in fog ; this 
region was all familiar to him. A side-road 


THE TRAGEDY OF THE FOUNDING 327 


yonder led to his old home ; how well he knew 
the bridge down there, the old mill! A lazy 
current of air moved by him from the place, and 
he noted in the dampness, like floating wreckage, 
the scent of charred timbers. Gone the old 
house ; gone the old mill. There had been a 
miller’s daughter, of course ; there always is a 
miller’s daughter ; and to his ardent emotions of 
fourteen, it had seemed to him that Tennyson 
must have written those charming verses for this 
very situation in Virginia. It is the miller's 

daughter But past tense, poet, now. These 

ardours, we know, are brief. But past tense, did 
we say ? Perfect, so he dimly remembered ; 
fuit was the word for her as for old Troy ; gue- 
rillas had swept these parts long ago, and rumour 
went about that the miller’s daughter had been 
found dead, and that it was well with her so. 
The vision of dead women is provocative ; and 
Clayton had now a psychological experience, real, 
vivid, convincing, the kind of thing that, when it 
is fiction in reality and not, as here, reality in 
fiction, gets into treatises with discreet initial 
letters and scientific comment of the tremendous 
sort “ G. M. C., a captain in the army, re- 

lates,” — and all that. But poor Clayton comes 
into no treatise. — He saw, suddenly, and close 
before him, framed by the luminous mist, his 
own mother’s face; but so real, so absolutely 


328 


THE HOUSE OF CAEDS 


real. She looked at him just as she did once 
when the doctors gave him up to typhoid fever. 
Her lips moved. — Yes? — He had reined his 
quivering horse to a stand. — She spoke words, 
and he heard them plain : “ The promise binds 
no longer. Serve your state.” He caught those 
words to his heart, sobbed once in a kind of re- 
lief, and saw the face fade away ; all about him 
was a slow, heavy dripping from the mist-laden 
leaves. He rode now hard to the southward. 

Every bound of his horse meant lives saved, 
rescue, perhaps an honourable peace. Through 
mist and night he rode until light began every- 
where to trample down the fog, and through all 
that plundered, desolate countryside sounded, in 
mockery of old times, faint cries and the bustle 
of a rural daybreak. Then, at last, shouts close 
before him, challenge, halt ; rude hands took his 
bridle ; his astonished captors stared hard and 
long at the uniform, the white-faced, haughty 
rider, the reeking, trembling horse. 

“ A deserter, — a spy. What you will. But 
take me to the general, — and at once.” 

Headquarters were in a spacious mansion which 
had escaped axe and flame of border warfare. 
The furniture was partly gone ; but enough re- 
mained for present purposes, and there were even 
superfluous things. In the hall stood an old suit 
of armour, family heirloom brought over seas and 


THE TRAGEDY OF THE FOUNDING 329 


relic of heaven knows what crusading or maraud- 
ing ancestor. The lights of morning fell upon 
that dingy piece of mail as they had done year 
in, year out ; but it is safe to say that they had 
never before fallen on such a figure as now stood 
close in front of it, — a man erect, unmoved, star- 
ing into space, and heedless of everything but the 
crumpled paper in his hand. Pale, haggard, he 
almost touched that armour with his back, — 
and so still, but for the fever and flash of his 
eyes. You would say that he belonged within 
the coat of mail, not out there upon the floor. 
His face should be peering from under its visor 
in the security of six centuries ago, when they 
dreamed dreams and heard voices and went on 
weary quests and followed nothing but beckon- 
ings from the white hand of faith or love. 

An orderly came in. “The general will see 
you here,” he said. — Let us look at poor Clayton 
a quarter-hour later, face to face with his illus- 
trious host. 

It is a grave countenance, — .we know it in 
many portraits, on statues; it is a silent, re- 
served, but courteous manner, with that strange 
influence which awes while it attracts, evokes 
enthusiasm of masses, and chills all familiarity 
of the individual. Yet just now the grave eyes 
are not far from sympathetic moisture, and the 


330 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


hand is stretched out almost as if to soothe with 
its touch. For all is over now, the eager revela- 
tion of great news, the crushing disillusion, the 
confessing, the blank gesture of despair. You 
remember that what this poor fellow has really 
done is to thwart unwittingly the last and best 
of the Confederate schemes for a surprise, a 
victory, and perhaps an honourable peace. 

“ I believe that God absolves you. I honour 
your motives, understand your struggle, and 
appreciate this tragic failure. I have known 

something of divided duties But what can 

you do ? No place in our ranks, Clayton ; even 
Arnold — forgive me ! — killed no fellow-officer 
in his flight. Our own people are very kindly 
disposed toward Eliot, you know ; he was a 
gentleman — and you remember his chivalrous 
treatment of Captain Sudbury, your kinsman. 
If it depended on me, my dear fellow, I could 

arrange it Give yourself up to the Federals ? 

Oh, no, — no ! Remember, — bear up, my boy, 
bear up! — remember I hold your honour to be 
still unstained ; and when the time comes, I 
shall make it my duty to vindicate you. I can 
do nothing of that now. Let me see, — what is 
there ? ” 

Clayton, who had grasped the general’s hand 
over that precious word of “ honour,” stared now 
at the armour by the wall ; he was beginning to 


THE TRAGEDY OF THE FOUNDING 331 


care very little what could be “ done.” All was 
done, for him. All over. 

“There is one way for you out of this,” said 
the general ; and Clayton looked a weary inter- 
rogation. “ See. They are fighting in Mexico 
still. Join the French there; they will welcome 
your aid, and they are very friendly with us. I 
will give you a pass, letters, whatever you need.” 

“ My name ? ” 

“ Ah, poor fellow ; you must change it. But 
fight down there and forget your disappoint- 
ment, your . . . mistake. If we are successful 
here, I can, I think, put you right, — we can 
certainly put you right here in Virginia, after 
the war is over.” — The general looked very 
grave, paused, and then went on, solemnly re- 
peating those ominous words “ Here in 

Virginia, after the war is over. And if we do 
not succeed, though I still trust in God we shall, 
— if the justice of our cause fail to win the 
approval of Providence, — if this long and bloody 
war shall prove to have been in vain . . . then ...” 
He paused once more. 

“ Then ? ” echoed Clayton. 

“ Then, sir, there will be some of us whose lot 
even you need not envy.” 


II 


Late that afternoon, when all had been done 
for him in the way of letters and passes, when 
one or two old friends had seen him and cheered 
him a little in secret, when a surgeon, sent by 
the general, had mixed a draught, commended 
his chalice, and ordered the tired man into bed, 
nature and the medicine combined to give him 
unbroken slumber for a dozen solid hours. Even 
his thoughts had gone silent for exhaustion. He 
took pleasure in the bed ; lauded his pillow ; 
foolishly noted that there was no more fog; 
listened with childish interest to the low chal- 
lenges of a sentry not far from his window ; and 
so fell asleep. He woke up hungry, ate with 
relish, dressed cannily in the new clothes pro- 
vided for him, and not until he was once more 
riding southward, away from the shifting line 
bordered by gray and blue, did he awake from 
the reaction of his tragedy and find it, black and 
insistent as ever, riding with him as an insepa- 
rable shadow. 

It was hot and moist, this new day, the first 
of exile, and fever seemed to hang over the whole 
332 


THE TRAGEDY OF THE FOUNDING 333 


land. By noon the sun blazed out in almost in- 
tolerable heat. He turned into a grove to rest, 
drank of the stream, and stood to watch a beetle 
caught in eddies and at last swept to death. 
Himself, then ? There were other and larger 
waters near. No. I have told you that Clay- 
ton was in the old fashion a deeply religious 
man. — At night he had shelter mainly in good 
houses, as he passed southward and westward ; 
but once, in storm, he had to take refuge with a 
negro and share the humble cabin. He did not 
mind that. So day by day went by in dull routine ; 
until one morning he felt the fever on him and this 
time in no metaphor, but as a slow resistless fire 
in limbs and head and heart. He saw wild 
visions, and lived in constant succession of them. 
How many times he fought over his fight by the 
pass ! One time it would be the truth ; another 
time there was reconciliation, timely discovery 
that the papers were without value, a cheery ride 
back, — only he and Eliot had somehow been 
changed into envoys of South and North respec- 
tively, arranging terms of peace. Their photo- 
graphs were in Harper’s Weekly , under crossed flags 
of the two sections, as he plainly saw ; and the 
letter-press called these two men “ noble types and 
exemplars each of his gallant army.” Hey, how 
the rockets blazed for peace and the established 
Confederacy, the new honourable alliance ! And 


334 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


boom, boom, went the triumphant cannon ! — A 
negro’s hut sheltered him from the heavy thunder- 
storm when once he woke to his plight. Another 
time he was preaching a funeral sermon over the 
good general in gray ; the iron bells tolled mourn- 
fully in his brain. Then came lucid intervals, 
with silence ; his troubles lay afar, massed like a 
watchful army ready to rush upon him at call. 
Then again the wild visions, and yet again. He 
made, for instance, a fine old-fashioned speech 
at his cousin Kriemhild’s wedding, toasting the 
bride and welcoming the bridegroom to a southern 
home. Sometimes he sang plantation songs, or 
“ spirituals ” which his old “ Mammy ” had taught 
to little Marse George. Once he preached mercy 
and forgiveness of all our sad mortality as at a 
darkies’ camp-meeting. But all these dreams 
were trivial, fugitive things compared with one 
that came to him as he stared at a lurid sunset 
sky with those eternal storm-clouds gathered 
low in the horizon. A great golden mass turned 
angel, blew trumpet as of a mighty wind ; and 
behold it was Judgment Day, and all the earth 
gave up its dead of all times to meet earth’s 
Creator for the reckoning. Souls were ranged 
silent in a vast amphitheatre, up, down, about, 
everywhere, save for the hollow space, as at the 
centre of things, where this Creator stood alone. 
Was there no recording angel ; no accuser ? None. 


THE TRAGEDY OF THE FOUNDING 335 


Only that solitary being ; and the vast of souls 
was all about him. But wait ! Accusers ? A 
plenty. Soul after soul detached itself from the 
ranks, saint, criminal, wasteling, infant, idiot, 
sage, madman, and monotonously rang out one 
accusation after another ; it was the Creator, not 
the creature, who stood trial there. And at last, 
Clayton, himself, hand in hand with Eliot, came 
forward to utter a double doom. Again a heavy 
peal of thunder aroused him, and the pouring 
rain. 

This could not last very long ; and yet there 
came some good of it, for now ills of his body 
began to absorb the terrors of his mind. Quite 
often, in the new mood, he laughed aloud and 
for long, so that scattered field-hands, or else 
some solitary, white-haired farmer driving a 
melancholy mule on errands of harvest, would 
look up in amazement. Women at the house 
where he stayed one night, the worst of all, tried 
to detain him there, but to no avail. In a tremble 
of fever and excitement, he rose from his sleep- 
less bed, dressed with queer whistlings and 
hummings, declined all breakfast save a cup of 
coffee, and so mounted and rode away in the 
bright morning, lilting Gaily the Troubadour in 
airiest if tremulous and much-jolted style, after 
he had overwhelmed his hostess with thanks full 
of the stately old forms and phrases, swinging 


336 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


his great soft hat, bowing low, and putting his 
horse to a sharp pace. Then came the collapse. 

Sunset fell as he rode along a pleasant lane, 
ignorant altogether of his bearings as of his plight. 
Cows came homeward up the slope of a hill, and 
a house was near the crest of it, a pleasant house 
with a bit of garden, fairish barns, and down 
here, by the side of the lane, a little, old-fashioned 
spring-house. Water, then. He suddenly knew 
how vastly he wanted water. Dropping heavily 
from his saddle, and leaving the horse to crop 
grass at leisure, he walked with uncertain tread 
through open bars of a dilapidated fence. Roused 
by his steps, a great mastiff sprang from behind 
the tiny house and came toward him with omi- 
nous growl. Clayton scarcely heeded ; he looked 
around for the way to water. The dog, too, 
stopped, looking at the stranger’s face. Dogs, 
it is credibly affirmed, know a gentleman ; and 
are also said to be good detectives, scenting the 
criminal, the evil man, the murderer. Here is 
mastiff’s chance. What comes over the brute? 
It moved to Clayton’s side, rubbed softly against 
him, looked up at him again, and then licked 
his hand. The man gave one sob, trembled, 
reeled, and sank in a swoon to the ground. 

When Clayton opened his eyes, he saw what 
old Lear saw as the music played and Cordelia 
bent over his bed. A young woman, not very 


THE TRAGEDY OF THE FOUNDING 337 


beautiful, but with a kind face, with a gentle 
touch, now knelt by the poor fellow and bathed 
his temples with water from the spring. The 
dog stood gravely by. Clayton looked at the 
face above him, wondered to see tears there, 
and then sank into another swoon. When a 
second time he revived, an old man had joined 
the group, and a negro woman. He thought he 
was dying, all was so still ; and he was indeed 
close upon death ; but something within him, in- 
dependent of all thought or desire, refused to die. 

They carried him to the farmhouse, and in a 
little room, with vines about the windows and 
some flowers of autumn here and there, kept 
fresh daily, he lay and slowly recovered. Before 
the flowers had all gone, and frost had come to 
that southern country, he was half well again. 
Two months passed, and he was physically a 
sound man. He had things to ponder over, 
things to do ; for great battles had been fought 
to the northward, and the only son of that 
simple household was killed. The mother had 
long been dead ; and since they were a kind of 
immigrant in these parts, coming thither to an 
unexpectedly inherited farm some dozen years 
before, there was none of their kin to call upon. 
Neighbours, even, were few and distant ; negroes, 
women, old folk, made up the bulk of these. 
And the old man himself now began to fail. 


338 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


There was a mute plea for help in his look ; and 
Clayton would not leave him. The Virginian 
gravely helped them all in their daily round of 
tasks, directing such few negroes as were left on 
the place. He showed father and daughter the 
general’s letter, the pass ; he told them of his 
errand to Mexico; but as the old man, now 
dying by inches, glanced helplessly at his son’s 
sword hanging on the wall, Clayton responded 
to the appeal, promising to stay through that 
winter, until the war was over, — say until late 
spring. Then came a keener test, a graver neces- 
sity. On a day of unusual frost and darkness, 
Clayton from his room upstairs heard hoof beats, 
noise of entering below, then the savage rush of 
the dog, a shot, a strange sound of struggling, 
and a cry. He ran lightly down, thinking chiefly 
of that sword upon the wall, and found two men 
in nondescript uniform ; one held the dying father 
by the throat, clamouring for hidden money, and 
the other, whatever his occupation, had short 
shrift of it, for he fell at the feet of the young 
woman. Clayton, we know, was expert with 
the sword. A pistol, dropped from the ruffian’s 
hand, was opportune ; changing owners rapidly, 
it shot dead the murderer. Two guerillas were 
buried in a corner of the wood ; Ponto in the 
garden ; and a decent funeral followed the old 
man to his rest in the churchyard. 


THE TRAGEDY OF THE FOUNDING 339 


There was no other way, even if Clayton had 
wished to avoid an evident duty. He must 
marry this girl, who had saved his own life, and 
who loved him. “You will not leave me?” she 
asked, bewildered, helpless ; a cry so like that 
later appeal of the northern widow to her gener- 
ous friend, and yet so different ! But first Clay- 
ton told the girl all his story. 

To her it seemed the most natural thing in the 
world, — all heroism and duty and undeserved 
harshness of fate. Let Clayton paint his deed 
never so black, and curse the fatal stroke of 
the sword which struck down his comrade, she 
only saw a strong arm rise for the blow that 
saved her from something worse than death, and 
in Eliot she could see nothing but the Yankee 
colonel, the invader, leader of ruthless men. 
Clayton might kill twenty such, and as he 
pleased. But his ancient house, his name, his 
former wealth, all of that gave her pause ; she 
was only a farmer’s girl. She would not be a 
reproach to him when . . . He stopped all these 
doubts. “ It is you that marry an outcast ; but 
I cannot leave you.” Two or three old men, a 
dozen women, the blind parson: strangest and 
quietest of weddings. 

A kind of eclogue, then, was outcome of that 
tragedy on the Virginian hills. The great horror 
fell back into the past; and Clayton felt the 


340 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


right as well as the obligation to live ; he had 
duty in love and love in duty. He did his best 
with resources of the farm, aided by money 
which he had taken in some quantity with him 
when he made resolve, on Eliot’s wedding night, 
to ride off alone and carry the papers south. 
Hope, too, rose for the southern cause. Humour 
of those terrible losses of the Federals in the 
wilderness, of the foiled advance, reached him 
through late spring and summer, spreading a 
new trust in the invincible southern arms. And 
then their baby came. Clayton, I have said it, 
was a deeply religious man ; and to his mys- 
ticism this gift of heaven seemed like 'a seal 
set upon his pardon for an unpremeditated sin. 
Yet the war raged on ; no peace settled over 
that bloody year ; and at last, with Sherman’s 
march, which sent waves of strange omen into 
the far corner where Clayton now lived his ob- 
scure life, hope grew faint again. Escape, at any 
rate, was now well-nigh impossible. 

Winter came again; and the tidings of war, 
to his better judgment, told a fairly desperate 
tale. With spring, Federal soldiers appeared ; 
and all the country around was under their rule. 
One day the wife came singing into the little 
parlor, her baby in her arms, to find her husband 
pale, but very calm, standing opposite a Union 
officer whose face expressed astonishment of the 


THE TRAGEDY OF THE FOUNDING 341 


liveliest variety. “My old corporal, dear. He 
is naturally surprised to meet me in this place. 
— Well, Armstrong ? ” 

“ Captain . . . What is it this pass calls you ? ” 
“ I am known as George Morison.” 

“Your wife and baby ? ” 

“ Yes. She saved my life, Armstrong. If . . .” 
“Hold on, Captain... Mr. Morison. That 
mess up there, so lucky for us, you know : that 
was a quarrel, a fair fight, wasn’t it ? ” 

« Yes.” 

“ I always said so. And you had to fly then. 
And lucky, as I say, for us. — Well, good-bye. 
No word from me. It’s not my business, any- 
way. You’re Mr. Morison, and this is Mrs. 
Morison, and yon’s Master Morison, — good luck 
to him. The war’s over, thank God. Can I do 
anything for you ? ” 

“ Take thanks of the kind. ... You know. 
And a northern paper or two ? God bless you ! ” 
Another good omen, that. August of the 
peace-year saw them still unmolested ; for the 
government, as Armstrong assured them, was 
not keen on Clayton’s trail, and had no wish, 
one might guess, to revive a history in which 
a certain general, now famous, had played the 
abject gull. No reason, then, why this isola- 
tion and this obscurity should not deepen until 
the exile could make arrangements of some kind 


342 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


and slip with his little family out of all danger. 
Danger, of course, would always lurk for him 
within American jurisdiction ; and no wonder 
that little incidents of the unusual sort made 
his nerves unsteady now and then. A fellow in 
civilian clothes, for example, peered about the 
farm one day, gave presents to the negroes, and 
told the old mammy, who waited upon little 
George, that his business was to gather material 
for a Household History of the War. There 
was Marse Richard, for example, who had been 
killed. So he knew about Marse Richard, did 
he, this affable man ? Yes, but he was keenly 
interested in the dramatic advent of Mr. Morison, 
too ; it was thrilling, said the stranger, and 
should have a page in the book, and Mammy’s 
own name thrown in, — and the baby’s, too. 
The baby’s name was George Morison, Jr., eh ? 
Named after his pa ? And this was all very 
fine for Mammy. She felt less comfortable, 
though, when the inquisitive fellow picked up 
Clayton’s watch, lying there on a desk, opened 
it, and read the inscription with what seemed 
a triumphant, irrepressible smile. True, he said 
he had been a watchmaker’s assistant once, and 
these things interested him ; but Mammy now 
called down Mrs. Morison. The agent for the 
history soon took to his heels and his gig, driv- 
ing rapidly away toward the distant railroad. 


THE TRAGEDY OF THE FOUNDING 343 

That was early September. President John- 
son’s proclamation of Thanksgiving came with 
stray newspapers one day in the later autumn, 
and set Clayton thinking hard. The South 
found a grim satire in this suggestion ; but our 
pious friend took the matter seriously to heart. 
He was afraid of his own happiness. He would 
give thanks humbly, sincerely. He thought of 
his grief-stricken cousin in the North, and her 
first peace-thanksgiving : how could he ever 
make her amends ? He felt a vast desire to 
touch his past life, and explain his penitence, his 
real innocence, to some one. Thoughts of the 
old hall, I suppose, and memories of our talk in 
the garden, fortifying reasons of a more practical 
kind, moved him to write me a long letter, to 
me, John Heigh, and to make a clean breast of 
his story from end to end. Did I answer the 
traitor, the villain, as he deserved ? I did. I 
wrote him in my blunt way, to lie low, very 
low, and to be happy, very happy. I should 
have added a package of toys and trash for the 
baby, I informed him, only I feared complica- 
tions both for the baby’s sire, and, considering 
southern campaigns, for my own spotless char- 
acter. I remarked, however, that if that officer 
Armstrong ever came to Philadelphia, he should 
be looked up, and I should give him, le nommS 
Armstrong, the best dinner, the finest cigar, 


344 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


these cursed, dirty greenbacks — how I did hate 
that money ! — could buy. So I wrote. And 
I only shrugged my shoulders, in American 
equivalent of the Italian feat, when Cards told 
me one day in the train that detectives were on 
that villain Clayton’s trail. 

“ Secret-service men ? ” I asked. 

“ Why, yes, — in a way, yes.” Cards turned 
somewhat red. Then John Macchiavelli Heigh 
did a bit of fine work. I told Cards that I should 
kick such detectives ; that I had my opinion of 
folks who stirred up the weary old business now ; 
but after all, it was government, and I was an 
ex-officer, and treason should be made odious 
(Johnson’s saying), and in point of fact, I had 
heard, in roundabout but trustworthy ways, that 
Clayton was disguised as a mining engineer in 
the province of Sonora, Mexico, somewhere down 
by the Gulf of California. Cards stared at me. 
Amen. 

Clayton made his holiday of Thanksgiving, 
after all. He wrote me some absurd, hysteric 
stuff; called me names; said my letter had cheered 
him, and put a new face on life ; declared that 
my news of Kriemhild had given him unspeak- 
able relief and eased his solicitude. This world, 
he perceived along with many acutely reasoning 
persons, is a world of the living and not of the 
dead ; and if my comment on the engagement, 


THE TRAGEDY OF THE FOUNDING 345 


about which I wrote in a slightly sarcastic vein, 
reminded him of another old saw, he was polite 
enough not to refer to the advantages of a living 
dog over a dead lion. At any rate, — so he 
seemed to think, so, I know, he felt, — this wid- 
owed cousin need not come again hand in hand 
with that inexorable ghost to vex his dreams. 
Only with the dead husband had he now to do ; 
his whole life should make amends. He would 
labour, so far as he could, for reconciliation of 
North and South, and do in poor shreds and 
patches of influence what Eliot might have done 
on the grandest scale. So he wrote me that 
Thanksgiving morning itself, posted the letter, 
and rode back to his little family, a modest pres- 
ent or so in hand. The boy came to the table 
for his first meal, their Thanksgiving dinner, sit- 
ting in a high chair and crowing with delight. 
And George Morison bent over to say the simple 
grace his fathers had always said, — For what we 
are about to receive 

But they came rudely into the very dining- 
room, — soldiers ; and the door was guarded ; 
and an officer, not much enamoured of his pres- 
ent business, called Mr. George Morison to book, 
and by another name. “ This way, you ! ” he cried 
to one without ; and presently that enterprising 
author of a Household History of the War came 
shambling in. “ Now, then ! Identify your man” 


346 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


“ Oh, that’s him. That’s Clayton. That’s the 
Captain,” said the man of letters, sedulously 
avoiding his victim’s gaze. The baby was dis- 
tinctly pleased, having an eye to effective group- 
ing and colour. 

But Clayton rose at once. He knew his hour. 
“ Yes,” he said, facing the officer, “ I am Clayton ; 
formerly a captain in the Federal army. I know 
your charge. Be considerate only of my wife.” 

“ By all means.” — This to Clayton. And “ we 
don’t want you any more,” said the Major, — no 
other than our random acquaintance of long ago, 
Abner R. Slocum, the object of well-merited at- 
tention from headquarters and now rounding out 
his service as a volunteer with a little regular 
work, — while he waved off the despised informer. 
Clayton tenderly raised his sobbing wife and led 
her into the next room ; baby had been haled away 
by his nurse, when the poor Captain came, pale 
and collected, back ; but the literary person still 
held his ground. 

“ Hard luck for you, Captain,” he commented, 
“and a nasty task for me and the Major here. 
But duty’s duty.” 

“I’ll thank you to speak for yourself,” said 
Major Slocum, tartly. 

“Fine enough, Major. Very fine. You put 
on style with this Virginian F. F. I’m the fer- 
ret, I suppose, and you’re the dog, — yes. But 


THE TRAGEDY OF THE FOUNDING 347 


who backs the ferret ? Eh ? Not just the gov- 
ernment, not the war department ; and you know 
it.” 

“ That’s so, Captain,” broke in the disgusted 
Major, « if this thing here does say it. They do 
tell all through the army it was a light, — a per- 
sonal affair. Technically you are all kinds of 
guilty; but we army men aren’t hot. I think Lee 
has said something for you ; that touches us, but 
it won’t help you with the politicians. Stanton’s 
a martinet, you know. It’s black, Captain, black ; 
you’ll have to stand court-martial, and they’ve 
put some lawyer or other on you. I’m sorry for 
you; but you are a soldier, and you want to 
know the worst ; there it is.” 

“ Thank you, Major.” 

“ And be good enough to keep me clear of this 
party, will you ? ” 

The detective shifted his pose and his quid ; 
then with pathetic dignity, “ Cuss away,” he said, 
“Cuss away. Cuss me, But you won’t cuss 
much up North at a man like ...” 

“ Oh, come now, come ! ” interjected Slocum. 

— “At a man,” the injured Lecocq went on, 
“ like L. A. Cards ! ” 

« Ah ! ” Clayton took a deep breath. “ As a 
partner of that gentleman, you will kindly take 
him a message from me. Tell him I understand. 
Tell him I am going to suffer whatever justice 


348 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


requires of me, but with a stout heart, and at 
last, a clear conscience. Give him my compli- 
ments on his excellent prospects in life. And if 
you tell him nothing else, tell him this : the deed 
now done at his instigation sends me to clasp 
hands, before God Almighty, with a man whom 
I honoured and wished well, whom I unwillingly 
injured, and who has long since forgiven me . . . 
but whom this self-constituted avenger has lost, 
and can never more call friend. Say that. — 
Major, I am ready to settle my account. I 
thank you for your straightforward kindness ; I 
have been a soldier, too. And now you will give 
me — an hour ? Yes ? — with my wife. Thank 
you.” 

One may read the rest of it in old newspapers 
of that day, but not set in very great promi- 
nence. Yet the same journals had much to say of 
the Cards-Eliot wedding, — which I did not at- 
tend. I was hurrying south with orders for 
revision of sentence, and all that : too late. Too 
late ! But the House was now established. You 
know in old times no great building was thought 
safe or well-omened until a victim was killed in 
the making of it. Cards was lucky. There 
were two victims sacrificed for his House. 

No, no. Not that tone. Don’t blame Cards 
too much. I take back my bitter comment ; and 


THE TRAGEDY OF THE FOUNDING 349 

I don’t like the set of your jaw as I name the 
poor chap. He thought Clayton deserved death ; 
but he did help me get those orders of revision. 
I cut up pretty rough, and Cards was almost on 
his knees to me. I don’t blame him, now ; and 
you know he did love your uncle passionately, — 
would have died for him. Remember that. And 
you can’t appreciate the feeling then against 
southerners. Don’t make the mistake so many 
foolish folk make in these days, of thinking such 
big, strong men as Cards to be bloodless, cow- 
ardly, without fire and generous instincts. I tell 
you deliberately, I like Cards now. I like his 
wife. Think it all over, — what I have read 
you ; and get your sober idea of it, and be just 
to the man when you go to him on Tuesday 
night. Your uncle loved him; and — can’t you 
see it, boy ? — he loves you, loves you like his 
own son. 

And now let us put out the lamp. You see, 
the dawn is coming. It is our twentieth cen- 
tury : as good, I suppose, as any other of the 
shabby procession since poor Anthropos began 
cutting with flint knives, and making his stone 
clubs, and piling up those kitchen-middens by 

the old North Sea It is your century, boy, 

not mine ; and think well what you do for your 
part in it when you go to see one of its strongest 
men, and are asked to be strong with him, and 


350 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


to have great opportunities. You know what 
men of your day are to be like, what they ought 
to do ; my task was to show you what American 
men were in the days of the trial and the test. 
I hope you know more of them than you did. — 
And now let us attempt to get a little sleep ; 
you’ll get it — I’ll do the other part. — Good 
night; good night. I am going to put these 
papers away, and sit here a few minutes alone 
. . . with old friends. 


VI 


THE HOUSE DUBITANT 






























God rest you, merry gentlemen, 

Let nothing you dismay. 

When we reached the House on that famous 
election night, there was considerable bustle and 
stir of guests who came out over a train or two, 
got the latest returns by a private wire which 
Cards had graciously accepted for the nonce, 
and then went back to noisier if less trust- 
worthy announcements at a club. Some of 
these visitors had quick, energetic, but low- 
voiced colloquy with the financier, and hurried 
away to despatch a message to New York or to 
London. A few of the wise, knowing what was 
good for them, held their ground and watched 
the great landslide as one detail of it after 
another came announced or guessed or heralded 
over the wires. It was a great victory ; that we 
all knew early in the evening hours ; but as the 
sweep and significance of it were revealed to 
the wary compiler of returns, we fairly turned 
boyish with enthusiasm, and hilarity reigned 
supreme. Crabbed, heretical old mugwump that 
I am, I have always believed in the man whose 
victory this was, and whom certain statesmen 
2 a 353 


354 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


thought at one time to have swept into obscu- 
rity. A few politicians of the more reputable 
class were with us ; and while they cheered 
lustily enough, I could discern some solicitude 
in their delight. A nervous, fugitive old fellow 
came up to two of these politicians, and began 
to cackle heartily about the outlook for good 
times. “ Stocks will kite, eh ? Don’t you 
think?” he asked. He was the kind of man 
who always wears a high silk hat of mornings, 
and keeps close to the ticker in a broker’s office. 

“ Stocks ? Oh, they’ll jump a little. — But 
you’d better find out what the next message 
to Congress will say.” 

The old fellow flitted off. 

“ What is Dugong at now ? ” said one of the 
pair. — “ I hear his daughter is just engaged.” 

“ Mistake for the young man. She’ll sell ex- 
dividend and ex-rights, — when the crowd are 
through with papa ” 

“ Right you are. — Hallo ! ” This to a glori- 
fied sort of reporter who came confidently along. 

“ What’s the latest, Sam ? ” 

“ Illinois ” 

“ Oh, blank Illinois ! What are our wards 
doing in town ? ” 

“ Great Scott ! What aren’t they doing ? ” • 
The newspaper man wiped his brow. “Look 
at this precinct for a sample ! ” He referred to 


THE HOUSE DUBITANT 


355 


a note-book, naming a division in one of our 
most savoury political wards. “Let me see,” 
and he ran his eye down the column. “Our 
majority is 231.” 

“ What ? What f ” It is Eliot who speaks, 
overhearing this conversation and the figures. 
“The whole legal registration of that division, 
and I know it, is just 154.” 

“ This,” said one of the wise men, laughing at 
Eliot’s face, “ is an age of wonder.” 

“ Who runs the ward ? ” 

The wise man named some leader, a Bill or 
Tom or Jim, noisome enough. 

“ And he holds a federal appointment, doesn’t 
he?” 

“Of course he does. And he will telegraph 
Washington, if he gets the chance, that his ward, 
by rolling up a majority that breaks all records, 
evinces at once its devotion to sound republican 
principles and also its enthusiastic belief in the 
Greatest American of our time.” 

“ Does the Greatest American, who appoints 
this outcast to office, really wish that kind of 
support ? ” 

“He’ll take it.” — But the man of news is 
already elbowing his way to Cards. He is not 
an ordinary Knight of the Brazen Fleece, or he 
would not be in the House of Cards, but an 
accredited representative of the great news 


356 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


distributors. We listened respectfully to the 
dialogue. — 

“ Mr. Cards, I am deputed to get opinions on 
the election from half a dozen prominent men 
here in Philadelphia. I begin, of course, with 
you. Dictate ? Rather write it out ? — I’ll 
wait.” 

“ No,” said Cards, smiling. “ What must be, 
must be. — Have you had something ? That’s 
right. — Well ! You may say . . . you may 
say ...” 

Out whipped a note-book ; and the great man 
dictated slowly 

“ Say that while the results to hand fully 
justify the expectations, which many of us held 
most firmly and for a long time, that the people 
would confirm sound business policies of a sound 
administration, I am more particularly pleased 
with the rebuke, the overwhelming rebuke, which 
now falls upon those who talked of rottenness 
in our finance and corruption or rank injustice 
in the relations of business and legislation. The 
clamour against trusts will now, I believe, in some 
measure subside ; and if there are abuses, these 
may safely be left to the executive and our pres- 
ent laws. Let us now have less talk of reform, 
and more work in developing the magnificent re- 
sources of our land. . . . Read that over, will 
you ? — Thanks ! Fix the first sentence. It’s too 


THE HOUSE DUBITANT 


357 


involved. Thank you, — and good night ! — Ah, 
J ohn ! I didn’t see you , or I should not have per- 
formed in public. — Eliot, dear boy, how are you? 

— This is really something like! — Seriously, 
gentlemen ; with these results, who can talk of 
any interest or group of interests controlling our 
government ? A clean sweep everywhere through 
North and West. ... Eh? What’s this, — what’s 
this ? ” 

A paper was handed him hot from the wires. 
“Well ! Gentlemen, — Missouri will probably go 
republican ! Missouri ! A break in the solid 
South ! And Maryland, too, seems certain. The 
whole country is behind us.” 

Cards handed the slip to De Ligny, and came 
toward us radiant with unwonted enthusiasm. 
“ And you’ve caught fire, too, I see, John ! Well, 
old friend, this is a good day, an auspicious day. 
And our young friend ? ” — He fixed a keen eye 
upon Eliot. — “You don’t see at first glance, per- 
haps,” he w’ent on, addressing the boy, “ what all 
this means. Such majorities as these indicate 
national conviction, profound and almost uni- 
versal. It is no manipulated Napoleonic plebis- 
cite, — no, no. This spells a different word. 
Here are Lincoln’s plain people to the fore again. 

— If only we had had this spirit abroad forty 
odd years ago, the rebellion itself could have 
been prevented.” 


358 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


“ And where would my uncle have stood in 
the matter?” So Eliot, in a tone quite too 
grave, not to say disputatious, for such a festal 
hour. But that is the way with youngsters. I 
interposed. You see, I was distinctly optimistic 
that night. After all, I am hewn from old re- 
publican rock, even if I am not digged from an 
abolitionist pit ; and this victory stirred ancient 
chords. Do you remember, friend, how we 
elected Lincoln, despite the copperheads, in 1864? 
Some old cronies there remembered ; and I had 
joined them in a simple toast to “auld lang syne,” 
and in another simple toast to — well, I said 
“ our country ” and they said “ our party but 
why quarrel over a word ? In brief, I was now 
heart and soul with Cards in his designs upon 
the future of our young friend. Once in the 
House, his fresh energy, his sane zeal for good, 
would tell in every way, especially upon Cards 
himself. Outside the great House and alone, 
what could he do ? I had expounded this view 
of the case to my silent companion as we walked 
over in the brisk, cold November night ; and 
now I set forth my optimism in more general 
phrase for whom it might concern. John Heigh 
delivered himself in these words. — 

“ I venture to answer that question which 
Eliot has just put to you, Cards. Our dead 
friend, if now alive, would ask for time, study 


THE HOUSE DUBITANT 


359 


the facts, and ally himself with strong elements 
to work for the general good. He would not 
play Don Quixote, I think, and attack more or 
less imaginary foes with antiquated weapons.” 

“ Hear, hear ! ” said Malstrem. “ If this gets 
to Washington, Major, they’ll give you a diplo- 
matic post ! ” 

“ Hold your irreverent tongue, Oss,” quoth I. 
“No. Eliot, our old friend of the old days, 
would see clearly that the modern danger lies 
in the union of politics and business, just as the 
old danger lay in the union of church and state. 
Both parties to the unnatural alliance get harm. 
Take politics out of business and business out 
of politics.” 

“ Start a new party with that device, John,” 
said Cards, “and I’ll join it.” 

“ Ah ! ” said I. “ I should like to think so. 
But I’ll leave the leadership to Eliot the younger 
here. I’m changing no opinions. America’s not 
a free country.” 

“ Hear, hear ! Cassandra’s back again.” 

“Nonsense, Oss. My contention is still true. 
Democratic government, as Jefferson conceived 
it, is a failure. Men can’t or won’t govern them- 
selves. They invariably find deputies. The dep- 
uty here, for a generation now, has been the 
boss, — a bad boss. Let’s get a good boss, and 
back him. After the republic, civil wars ; then 


360 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


empire ; and, for the empire, a good Augustus. 
That’s modern, sensible democracy; and this 
election confirms it ” 

“ And we all accept the result, as we accept 
your graceful account of it, John!” said Cards. 
“ And we want the young men with us, working 
where they will do the most good.” 

“ But what shall we do without the Major’s 
old comments on political situations ? ” queried 
De Ligny. 

“ Oh,” said I, “ you’ve heard my General Con- 
fession. I am tired of playing bear and doing 
all the snarl and growl of the neighbourhood. 
You see, I voted the republican ticket. . 

A great applause went up. 

... For President ,” I concluded grimly. There 
was a laugh. Cards seized the psychological 
moment. Everybody was happy, the country 
was saved, democracy was not absolutely dead, 
prosperity reigned from sea to sea, and old John 
Heigh had come as near to throwing up the 
sponge of reform as any one could ask. The 
great man was now ready to make his proposi- 
tion, and to hear Eliot’s. Business, of course, 
came first ; a powerful coalition of corporate in- 
terests was on foot, and Eliot, dealing mainly 
with financiers and men of mark, should have 
charge of the legal arrangements, incidentally 
claiming a share in the first division of enormous 


THE HOUSE DUBITANT 


361 


profits. This proposition accepted, — and who 
could decline it ? — the more intimate topic would 
follow ; and Cards saw himself coming back arm- 
in-arm with one whom he could call not only 
partner, but son ; not only son, but the avatar and 
new birth of this strong man’s single friendship, 
lost in early manhood and found again at the 
threshold of a hale old age. No wonder that his 
voice vibrated with mingled pleasure and triumph. 
... “ Cards,” whispered one of the politicians, 

“ must have had more on the election than was 
supposed.” — And now the host bade us temporary 
good-bye. 

“ Gentlemen,” he said, « consider yourselves 
absolutely at home. The returns are still pour- 
ing in, and you shall have them at once, — only 
excuse my presence with you for a while. I 
have an appointment with Mr. Eliot.” 

It was the manner of royalty, — and why not ? 
Certainly this was the happiest moment in his 
life, as he anticipated the best of that long series 
of triumphs into which he had converted his 
energy, his perception, his skill. A solitary 
triumph, merely individual, is seldom sweet ; 
under civilized conditions, humanity is capable 
of its highest emotions only when that indefinite 
quality which we call altruism is in play, and 
when the individual stream feels a tidal flow 
from social waters. Cards hesitated a fraction 


362 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


of a minute, then, for the first time, used an old 
name. “ Come . . . Waltham ,” he said. 

The dullest of us felt what was in the air, and 
De Ligny put the feeling into eloquence. “See 
those two as they walk off together ! Nineteen th : 
century America has won its primacy among 
nations by such men as our Cards ; it will hold 
its place by the virtue of twentieth-century men 
like this young Eliot. An allegory ! ” 

“Or an anachronism ; have you thought of 
that?” Malstrem had joined us, cool as always, 
and with that cynical touch in his manner which 
is due to frequent intercourse with incorrupt- 
ible and far-seeing statesmen. But why fling a 
word like this into peaceful talk ? — « What do 
you mean by 4 anachronism ’ ? ” queried De Ligny, 
as sharply as he dared. 

Malstrem smiled. « Oh, — nothing, nothing. 
Only have none of you studied that young man ? 
And when did Don Quixote flourish, Major ? A 
century or so after his proper time, didn’t he ? 
Quite so. 6 Twentieth century ’ did you say of 
Eliot? I think not. He seems to be engaged 
with the Rights of Man, and perfectability, and 
all that, — has got his arm crooked with Tom 

Jefferson’s But dear me! I only object to 

the figure of speech. I dare say the show will 
go on as arranged. The young man may know 
a good father-in-law when he sees one, — and his 


THE HOUSE DUBITANT 


3G3 


emotions aren’t a hundred and fifty years old at 
any rate. — Don’t mind me.” 

“ Oss,” I said in my forensic manner, but with 
conciliatory smiles, “let me put you straight 
about the boy and about the situation. De 
Ligny is right in his diagnosis. Cards represents 
the corporation idea in its early, crude, forma- 
tive stage ” 

“ Let me thank you for Cards and myself.” 

«No, — listen! Business has begun every- 
where as piracy and has gradually come under 
wholesome restraint of law. Corporations have 
begun and taken the field in a fashion not very 
remote from brigandage ” 

“ Now I hear my old Major again ” 

“ Brigandage But now they are to be 

brought under proper control. Who can be 
trusted with the restraint, control, guidance, 
and development of corporations but the corpo- 
ration lawyer of a new type ? There he is ! 
Young Eliot is the type. There are nineteenth 
century and twentieth century clasping hands ; 
and I thank heaven that I have lived to see 
the day when a brave, straight, intelligent, and 
well-equipped man like my young friend is to all 
intents and purposes taken into the House of 
Cards.” 

The politicians stared at me ; De Ligny was 
pleased to approve my speech ; and Malstrem 


364 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


whistled. As a boy, Oss was always pert to 
a degree, rude I may say ; and De Ligny was 
quite indignant at his ways just now. But I 
never minded Oss. “ Come here,” I said to him, 
“ and bring me two glasses of that . . . only a 
little, you scoundrel, — a little glass. So. Now 
fill up, the rest of you, and drink with me to 
De Ligny’s toast — the Allegory ! ” 

“ The Anachronism ! ” corrected Malstrem. 

We drank with a will, adding a moderate little 
cheer; when in the midst of our noise, young 
Eliot opened the far door of the room and came 
in, alone. 

“ Well,” he said to me with a strange energy 
of cheerfulness, “and what do you say now to 
Home-along ? ” 

Malstrem slapped his leg. “Won my bet, by 
Jove ! And carried the amendment ! Where’s 
your Allegory now ? ” he asked me. And then, 
turning to Eliot, “ Young man,” he cried, “ I said 
so ! You have ridden straight. I always wanted 
to see a Charge of the Light Brigade, too ; and 
now I’ve seen it. You get medals, I believe, and 
a poem about you, — but no prize-money or 
that sort of thing, eh ? ” He put out his hand. 
“ Magnifique^ eh? But not war, they say. I 
congratulate you.” 

“ What the deuce do you mean, Oss ? And 
what do you mean, boy ? Home , did you say ? ” 


THE HOUSE DUBITANT 


365 


“I think so, Major. Thank you, Mr. Mal- 
strem ; I understand. Gentlemen, Mr. Cards 
begs to be excused ; he is . . . called to his family. 
You are to make yourselves at home. — Come, 
Major, if you will ; the election is safe beyond 
all doubt. — Good night ! ” He linked his arm 
in mine and led me out as if I were a big New- 
foundland dog. He has a kind of quiet imperi- 
ousness, now and then, this young man. I 
grumbled one thing and the other as we got into 
our coats ; and only when we had left the house, 
made nigh upon a hundred paces down the drive, 
and felt a cold wind in our teeth, did I find my 
old authority. “ Here,” I said, “ stop ! What 
does all this mean ? What have you done ? ” 
He stopped at my bidding. It was chill, 
gusty, the sky full of driving clouds with a few 
stars peeping out here and there ; the great 
house, with all its lights, seemed to join in my 
question as it loomed up vast and solid, a rejected 
refuge full of cheer. — “ What have you done ? ” — 
“Well, Major, — in the full sense of the word 
I have declined, and, again, in the full sense of 
the word, with thanks.” 

“Declined with... You declined? Abso- 
lutely ? ” 

« Absolutely.” 

« No, boy, — no ! Don’t say that. It’s all 
my cursed snarling at these robbers and poli- 


366 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


ticians! But I don’t count Cards with them. 
I ought not to have I ought . . 

« No, Major. Put it all on these shoulders of 
mine. I did it. In one sense I followed your 
counsels ; what have you been reading to me, — 
what have you told me? — Did that story of 
yours decide me, you ask. Yes. Major, my 
name is Waltham Eliot.” 

“ Ah, boy, boy ! — How big that house looms 
up there ! I have been unfair to Cards. No, 
no. This is Quixotic. Tomorrow... Eh? Well, 
well. — And Cards ? ” 

“ I was as considerate, as respectful, as I could 
be. He was not at all angry or hasty, — he 
seemed just baffled. He pleaded with me, sir, 
till I felt so ... so guilty. But I couldn’t yield. 
It was pretty solemn, Major Heigh ! Pretty 
solemn. Of course it meant the deuce and all 
to me ; but the queer part was that it seemed 
to be actual life and death with him.” 

“ Poor Cards ! Poor Cards ! — I know.” 

“ He said I reminded him of my uncle, forty 
odd years ago, arguing with him about enlisting 
for the war. ‘Now,’ says he, with a pathetic 
attempt at humour, ‘ it is you that won’t enlist.’ 
— ‘ Oh,’ said I, ‘ but I shall enlist, Mr. Cards, — 
I do ; and to my mind for as big a fight. Only 
I’m a rebel,’ I said. And he got up and walked 
about. ‘ At both ends of my career,’ he said, 


THE HOUSE DUBITANT 


367 


‘my best purposes are balked because I can’t 
see duty as another man sees it.’ He was terribly 
cut up.” 

“ Eliot,” my voice shook a little, as we slowly 
made our way under those driving clouds, and 
the great house was left far behind us. “ Eliot, 
I am a gray-headed, garrulous fool, as you have 
found out. But I am thinking of my pet, my 
little Kriemhild ” 

“ ‘ If she be not fair for me . . .’ No, no, I’ll 
not put that on. Major, that is the sting in the 
situation. But I shall give her the fine old sol- 
dier’s reason — On going to the Wars. Will she 
approve ? Wait for me ? Join me ? ” 

“History,” I said, with an attempt to regain 
my old judicial manner, “ does not record the 
reply of Lucasta. And will this child desert the 
House? — You have refused to enter it. You 
could have gone inside, — I still think you should 
have gone — and made it better. But now you’re 
out of it, — out of it ! ” 

“ Major,” — the boy’s tone was uncommonly 
grave, — “ there is nothing for us to do inside 
that House.” 

“ Well, you’re out of it, sure,” I said peevishly, 
not choosing to follow his new lead. 

“ And within are . . .” 

“ None of that, you Puritan ! Play fair ! ” 

« Well, then, I’ve good company without ! ” 


368 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


“ Meaning 

“Well, the Ten Commandments. A few con- 
gressmen, and perhaps two senators. People like 
you, dear old friend ! And — whisper it — I’ve 
a suspicion that our Man, this great person to 
whom we have paid democracy’s perilous com- 
pliment to-day, has no mind to abide within the 
House ! ” 

“ Heaven send it so ! ” I was catching fire. 

“And, Major! Wait until once we young 
fellows have started our jolly row in the open, 
— see then what manner of inmates will be 
ready to rush out of the House, for fresh air 
and the new cause ! Sooner or later, you know, 
a sound man has to break out of barroom, and 
gambling-hell, and all that, to find himself, to 
breathe deep, to play with little children, to fall 

to hard work Oh, they’ll come, the sound 

fellows. And, — Major ! ” 

“ Yes, boy ? ” 

“ Do you know, there was a look in his eye ! 
I mean Cards. What if we got Cards himself 
out of the House, the founder and maker, the 
strong man of‘ it? Cards himself! Do that, 
and into what a poor, miserable mass of thin 
ruin that House would fall! Major, — there’s 
the game ! ” 

We stood still in the highroad. Wind, louder 
than before, roared by us, but the scud of clouds 


THE HOUSE DUBITANT 


369 


had grown thin and stars were peeping out 
everywhere. That was the wind’s work. It 
was the North-West wind, the wind we love, 
that sets strong men to the delight of breasting 
it and breathing it deep, but sends weaklings to 
the fireside, — the wind of our western world, 
that has called its brave message to every sound 
American from the first pioneer dowrn to this eager 
man at my side. I saw in the dim light how 

his eyes glittered with that old Quixotic fire 

And then I remembered how vainly other fires 
like his had burned ; I remembered my youth 
and all its hopes, its faiths, its charities, ending 
in a dull blur of disillusion, the fate of all 
dreamers and believers who walk this compro- 
mise world. I shook my head. 

“ You can’t do it.” 

“ We must do it.” 

It was at the cross-roads that he said this, 
and it came to my mind that suicides used to be 
buried in such a spot ; here, I growled, was as 
arrant a felo de se as ever spilt his own blood 
and marred all that fortune had in store for him. 
But young Eliot breasted on into the wind. 
“ Think, Major,” he said, “ of the chances ! And 
if we don’t win, this country will not be fit to 
live in. Yet we are going to win ! ” 

“ Are we?” I said ; “ are we ? ” But my 
reply lacked that burliness of sarcasm and obsti- 


370 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


nacy which I once thought indomitable. I re- 
curred to the young man’s other phrase, “We 
must do it.” Must is the word of great causes. 
Could he win ? I fell to thinking of him and 
his great Perhaps ; and silent, busied each with 
his thought, we two made our way homeward, 
while the wind called aloud upon all the stars 
in the sky, and those last shreds of vapour 
scudded out to sea. 


I 


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Henry Kitchell Webster, author of “ Roger Drake: Captain of Industry,” “ The 
Banker and the Bear,” etc. With illustrations by Joseph Cummings Chase. 

Mr. Webster’s new romance is one in which love and war contribute a full quota 
of interest, intrigue, thrilling suspense, and hairbreadth escapes. 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York 


♦ 


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